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In the Military
Gregg K. Kakesako
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Coast Guard brass like new Costner movie
A Kevin Costner movie, opening this month, covers the training of Coast Guard rescue swimmers, is "very true" and "accurate in telling the Coast Guard story," said Rear Adm. Sally Brice-O'Hara, who heads the 14th District in the Pacific.
Meeting with state Civil Defense and congressional staff members to show off the Coast Guard's newest twin-engine rescue helicopter this week, Brice-O'Hara said her bosses have seen advance screenings of "The Guardian," in which Costner portrays an instructor, and are pleased with the movie.
The first joint memorial service honoring veterans of the 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Military Intelligence Service and the 1399th Engineer Corps -- World War II units made up mainly of first-generation Japanese Americans -- will be held at 9 a.m. Sept. 24 at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Two events next month also will mark the release of the story of Israel Yost, who served as the chaplain for the 100th Battalion for 19 months beginning in October 1943 and through the campaigns of Salerno, Monte Cassino, Anzio and Bruyeres.
The book, co-edited by his daughter, Monica, and historian Michael Markrich, contains material from Yost's field diaries, letters to his wife, speeches he gave after the war and photographs. Yost died six years ago.
To mark the publication of "Combat Chaplain" -- published by University of Hawaii Press -- there will be receptions at 10 a.m. Sept. 9 at the 100th Battalion Veterans Clubhouse at 520 Kamoku St. and at 2 p.m. Sept. 10 at the University of Hawaii School of Architecture auditorium.
Reports of the fury of Super Typhoon Ioke, which slammed into Wake Island Wednesday night with winds gusting more than 100 mph, moved Michael Poma of Redlands, Calif., to write about his experience with Typhoon Sarah in 1967. "I lived there as a small boy and was evacuated in September 1967, the day after Typhoon Sarah destroyed the island," Poma said in an e-mail. "I still consider Wake one of the most interesting and unique places that I have lived or visited during my life. It was almost the last place that I lived. Sarah was a very powerful and devastating force and reduced the island to a pile of sand and rock. My mother and two sisters were evacuated, along with myself, on Air Force C-141 aircraft to Hickam Air Force Base. My father was one of those who stayed behind for three months to restore the island. The island was rebuilt and we did return. We lived there until 1969 before returning to the mainland. Great memories!!!"
The two-year-old exhibit -- "Dark Clouds Over Paradise: The Hawaii Internees Story" -- which traces the history of 1,400 Hawaii residents of Japanese ancestry who were interned throughout Hawaii after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, will open on Sept. 16 at the Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hilo. The exhibit will be up until Dec. 27. Admission is free.
Those interned included Japanese issei (first-generation Japanese Americans) Buddhist, Shinto and Christian priests, Japanese language school officials and commercial fishermen. The exhibit was based on documents from Japanese Cultural Center. It depicts life in the Hawaii camps where internees played sports, wrote songs, started literary clubs and made handicrafts behind barbed wire.
The 110-foot Coast Guard cutter Galveston Island is now calling Honolulu its home port. It was replaced on Guam by the Washington and Assateague, also 110-foot patrol boats. During its voyage from Guam the two cutters were diverted for four days to assist in the search for four missing fisherman from Pohnpei.
"In the Military" was compiled from wire reports and other sources by reporter
Gregg K. Kakesako, who covers military affairs for the Star-Bulletin. He can be reached by phone at 294-4075 or by e-mail at
gkakesako@starbulletin.com.