KEN SAKAMOTO / KSAKAMOTO@STARBULLETIN.COM
At a ceremony at Hickam Air Force Base yesterday honoring
former American POWs and military personnel still missing
in action, Jesse Baker and his wife Shirl "Shorty" marched
with a POW/MIA flag. Baker is a veteran of both the Korean
and Vietnam wars.

Vets’ war memories
resurface amid crisis

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

John Lessar was just a junior at McKinley High School in 1950 when his family got word that his cousin had been killed fighting as a machine gunner with the 5th Regimental Combat Team on a ridge in Korea.

A year later Lessar was in uniform as a Marine after dropping out of high school.

"I wanted to get revenge for what happened to my cousin," said Lessar.

A half century later, Lessar, who was wounded and spent three years in a military hospital, found himself telling his 21-year-old son that following the terrorist bombings of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon last week that it was his time to serve.

"If they call you," said Lessar, "I told him he should go."

Lessar also has grandsons that could be affected.

But his advice to them is the same.

"I would be honored, if they all served."

KEN SAKAMOTO / KSAKAMOTO@STARBULLETIN.COM
Korean War veteran John Lessar also attended the ceremony.

Lessar was among the small handful of veterans who attended a brief but poignant private ceremony at Hickam Air Force Base yesterday marking the annual National POW/MIA Recognition Day ceremony.

With the guns of war again ready to be unleashed after last week's terrorist attacks -- the worst in the country's history -- several veterans like Lessar said the tragic events of Sept. 11 was something the country least expected.

"It hit us at home like it did at Pearl Harbor," Lessar said.

"It was an unfortunate act," added retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Charles Mocking, a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. "It's something that we least expected, but now we are now prepared to do whatever is necessary,"

"All of us still do volunteer work," he added. "We will help wherever necessary."

In his speech, Col. Al Riggle, 15th Air Base Wing commander, said that as the nation prepares for war, it should not forget the sacrifices of the "thousands who have been held prisoners of war or whose fate has not be resolved."

"Captive Americans were stripped of their precious freedom and used cruelly as pawns at a negotiating table. Many were lost in the chaos of battle, or in operations that prevented rescue or recovery. Their loss is even more profound for their families because of the inability to determine if they survived."

According to the Department of Defense, there are now 1,956 Americans missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War; 1,473 in Vietnam, 415 in Laos, 60 in Cambodia and 8 in the territorial waters of China.

Of the more than 1.7 million Americans who served in Korea, more than 36,000 lost their lives there, and more than 8,200 are listed as missing.

For veterans like Lessar, who have felt the sting of battle, "there is a crisis going on in our country. Our country is calling, we should respond.

"I am glad to see the United States of America getting back together. This tragedy has brought people back together ... bringing them closer as it should be."