LOS ANGELES — As Japanese companies ready themselves to bid on California's high-speed rail project this year, one man is asking them to pause and remember the past.

Lester Tenney, 90, is using the occasion to renew his call for an apology from Japanese firms that used him and other prisoners of war as forced labor more than 65 years ago.

"We are not opposed to the Japanese companies winning the high-speed rail. But only after they acknowledge that they treated us exactly like slaves," Tenney said in an interview.