FF: When we first started, I don't think most of us could read but a few Japanese words and I guess I told you earlier my experience in class. I mean, I was, I would have preferred to go to Europe and so I -- and I know that they washed out people. Those at the bottom of the class, so many halls, got washed out. And so I decided that was my ticket to going back to some infantry company again, but I never got washed out. I mean, they kept washing, they did wash people out, but I never got washed out for some reason or another, even at the bottom of my class. They washed out guys above me but never me for some, I don't know why.

I finally got called into the... well, the instructor finally sent me in to see the Commandant, who was Major Aiso, and he really read me the riot act. He told me that, he told me that I, I better be prepared, to go out into the field totally unprepared with these people depending upon me. That I was going to be unprepared 'cause he wasn't going to wash me out. I guess I told you, Danny Aiso was in my class, his brother, younger brother. And he got washed out, and I wondered why he got washed out and I didn't, and of course, that didn't sit well with the Major. And I finally had to finish out school. And I climbed from the last man up to the fourth from the last, because I really, if they weren't gonna wash me out, I really didn't want to be the guy that was gonna screw up the team.

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