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In the Military Gregg K. Kakesako |
See also: For Your Benefit
Decorated vet from
Honolulu is inductedDennis M. Fujii, of Honolulu, who served as a crew chief aboard a helicopter ambulance of the 237th Medical Detachment during the Vietnam War, has been inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame in recognition of the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star he was awarded while trying to aid wounded soldiers in Laos in 1971.
Fujii's helicopter was shot down on Feb. 19, 1971, while approaching a heavily defended landing zone. A second helicopter was able to rescue all of the crewmen except Fujii. Throughout the night and the next day Fujii administered first aid to wounded South Vietnamese soldiers. For more than 17 hours Fujii repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to call down air strikes. On Feb. 20 another rescue attempt failed when the helicopter he had boarded was shot down. He was finally rescued two days later.
The Hall of Fame is located in the Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Ala. Other soldiers from Hawaii who have been honored by the Army Aviation Association of America are Command Sgt. Major Willy Wilson and Sgt. 1st Class Rodney Yano, a Vietnam War Medal of Honor recipient.
North Korean soldiers, who guard the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, like to look menacing and never like to have their pictures taken.
However, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki said that when he visited Gen. John Tilelli, then U.S. Forces Korea commander in September 1999, they devised a scheme to get pictures of the North Koreans.
When the two U.S. generals met in the conference room that straddles the dividing line between North and South Korea, two North Korean soldiers stopped to look at the two visitors through a window on their side of the border.
"That's why we are laughing," Shinseki told John McLaughlin, U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii director, during his first tour of the Shinseki Gallery Tuesday. "We tricked them into showing their faces," said the retired general as he pointed to a picture now hanging in the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii at Fort DeRussy.
Sixty members of Bravo Company of the Hawaii Army National Guard's 193rd Aviation Regiment reported to C Quad at Schofield Barracks March 15 to begin at least a month of training to prepare them for their yearlong deployment to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
The soldiers will replace 62 members of their unit who were sent to Kandahar in August. There is expected to be a few weeks of overlap between the arriving and departing members of Bravo Company, a National Guard spokesman said.
Citizens in Kanagawa prefecture have started a petition drive to protest the possibility that a nuclear aircraft carrier could be berthed at Yokosuka Naval Base, located at the mouth of Tokyo Bay, to replace the conventionally fueled USS Kitty Hawk, according to the Asahi Shimbun. The drive was started after Adm. Thomas Fargo, head of the Pacific Command, raised the possibility in Washington before the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday. On Thursday, the U.S. Navy headquarters in Japan told The Asahi Shimbun that no decision has been made on the successor to the Kitty Hawk.
The Japanese newspaper pointed to a 2001 Navy report that said that out of the 12 carriers in service, 10 are nuclear-powered. Only the Kitty Hawk and the USS John F. Kennedy, based in Mayport, Florida, are conventionally powered. The Kennedy will stay at Mayport until it retires in 2018. The Kitty Hawk was sent to Yokosuka in 1998 and will retire in 2008. Its predecessors at Yokosuka-the USS Midway, deployed in 1973, and the USS Independence, in 1991-were both conventionally powered.
The U.S. Senate confirmed on March 31 the promotions of state adjutant general Bob Lee as a two-star general in the Army National Guard and Joe Chaves as a brigadier general who heads the 29th Infantry Brigade.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
"In the Military" was compiled from wire reports and other
sources by reporter Gregg K. Kakesako, who covers military affairs for
the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. He can be reached can be reached by phone
at 294-4075 or by e-mail at gkakesako@starbulletin.com.