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Joining the Army So we leave West Oakland and fast-forward to Berkeley High School, where I was a conscientious student from  to . When I became a senior in high school, I began to think of what I would do after graduation. I hadn’t been too happy at Berkeley High School. In looking at my options upon graduating, number one, I could get a job. During high school, I did decrease my activity in “extramural fund-raising” at night, primarily so that my mother wouldn’t worry as much. I then worked as a gardener’s helper, a parking lot attendant, a department store stock boy; those jobs gave me some idea of the job market, which looked pretty bleak. The second option was to follow in my father’s footsteps and go back to West Oakland and start some “business” of my own. That would also worry my mother. By that time, I began to realize that in the long run, it was not a winning proposition. I was getting more civilized at that point. The third option was to continue my formal education at UC Berkeley. I quali fied for admission, but there were some things that held me back.1 Number one, I don’t recall any teachers actively encouraging me to continue my formal education. I got the feeling all they wanted was to get me out of there, period. Number two, though I was academically qualified, would I even be able to get into Berkeley? You have to remember that World War II was still fresh in the minds of a lot of people, and some Japanese Americans felt that Harvard might have been a better choice for me, that prejudice and discrimination would be less severe on the East Coast. Number three, it cost money. They didn’t have financial aid programs then and scholarships alone don’t do it. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t notice until I recently reread my yearbook how much encouragement I was getting from my female classmates to join them at Berkeley. But at that time, I had already decided to go to the military—my fourth option.   “I Was a Man by the Standards of the ’Hood” Here’s the way I went into the military. I sat back and said, “I’m seventeen now, I can enlist.” At the time, Ted Williams was considered one of the top baseball hitters in the country, hitting home runs.2 He had this natural ability to see an object in motion and connect with it. This is really important if you’re a fighter pilot. I passed that with flying colors. I was so happy. Then came the disappointment. They had too many fighter pilots in the air force at the time. The Korean War had ended, so they had a surplus of fighter pilots. If I waited a couple more years, they’d probably take me. They said I could sign on as an enlisted man in the army for four years and hope that openings would occur. The idea of waiting four years on a hope didn’t strike me as reasonable. I decided, if I’m going into the army, I’m going into the infantry. I’m going to war. I’m going to be a warrior. I’m not going to be stationed on no ship; I mean not in no Coast Guard. I ain’t servicing aircrafts; I want to fly them. I figured it out. In twenty years, I could probably be the first Japanese American general in the United States Army. Some pathway had been opened up because of the nd. I knew of Japanese Americans who served in the U.S. Army—an uncle, a cousin, and one of my mother’s bosses. I’d heard of Ben Kuroki in the U.S. Army Air Force. During World War II, they didn’t have a single Japanese American pilot in the army air force. But Ben was a tail turret gunner. He was one of the survivors of the notorious Ploiesti oil field strike in Romania, where a hundred and fifty bombers went over there and fifty of them were shot down. I mean that’s hard to take. He got a medal for it. So Sergeant Ben Kuroki’s deeds were imprinted on my mind. Army sounded like a good place.3 So I’m seventeen years old, going to make my first career decision, independently...

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