At a young age, Tetsuo Hayashida began working odd jobs to supplement his family's income. One of his jobs was to load up a wagon with the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i>, <i>Ladies Home Journal</i>, and other magazines and sell them to early morning commuters on their way from the East Bay to San Francisco. Once his wagon was empty, he would clean up and head for school. He also delivered groceries and helped gardeners and farmers with fruit-picking. He continued to work in various jobs throughout his college years, including salmon canning in Alaska and being a butler for a multimillionaire in San Francisco. It was while he was working as a butler that he was drafted into the U.S. Army under the Selective Service Training Program.
<br><br>With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hayashida and other Japanese Americans in the military on the West Coast were evacuated. Hayashida and his medical battalion unit were shipped to Camp Wolters, where they were assigned to do manual labor such as breaking rocks and hauling and scattering fertilizer for landscaping. More humiliation followed as one day they were ordered to their barracks and watched noncommissioned Caucasian officers search through their belongings to look for hidden weapons. Despite the negative experiences Hayashi encountered, he and other Nisei learned to accept it as "a manifestation of the attitude of the times." Hayashida felt that his parents and other Issei who endured evacuation and incarceration suffered the most.
<br><br>In June 1942, Hayashida transferred to Camp Savage for Japanese language training. As part of the first class at Camp Savage, he and five other Nisei men became the first team of translators and interrogators to serve in the South Pacific. Though the MIS men were officially linguists, they encountered many unexpected experiences such as being trained on how to fire antiaircraft guns and assembling and disassembling the guns for maintenance. Hayashida himself faced an unanticipated event in which he was asked to act as the doctor on board the ship because of his previous experience in the medical battalion. Fortunately for him, no serious medical emergencies occurred during the trip.
<br><br>One incident that occurred in New Caledonia remains deep in Hayashida's memory. One day, Col. Frederick Munson who was the chief of military intelligence in the South Pacific took him aside and questioned him about his loyalty to the United States. Hayashida was taken by surprise and quickly answered that he is first and foremost an American citizen and that it would be his duty to bear arms against Japan: "That day hung like a dark cloud over him [Hayashida] for the rest of his stay in the South Pacific. He couldn't help but feel that someone was always keeping an eye on him."
<br><br>On the island of Jolo in the Philippines, Hayashida would encounter another incident that would linger in his memory. With the assistance of a Japanese prisoner of war, Hayashida and other men prepared leaflets to urge remaining Japanese soldiers to surrender. Of the original 10,000 men thought to be alive, only 88 were actual survivors. The rest had died largely of malnutrition, disease, and U.S. military actions. The survivors eventually surrendered and were given food, clothing, shelter, and medical attention as promised. 
<br><br>Hayashida also witnessed emotional and spiritual reactions of the Japanese at the time of surrender. At the grave site where the Japanese prisoners were buried, he saw a Japanese officer facing east and offering a prayer for the dead. Suddenly, the soldier broke down and began to cry. It was then that he realized that the Japanese had accepted defeat and that the war had truly ended. 
<br><br>Hayashida arrived in San Francisco in January of 1946, separating from military service a few months later. He finished his bachelor's degree as well as advanced degrees in anatomy, and then became a professor at the University of California School of Medicine--a career that would last for more than 30 years.
