Hiroto Kokuryo, left, Kumiko Nakano and Mizuki Kitagawa greeted Hugh O'Reilly yesterday at Honolulu Airport. O'Reilly was one of the first soldiers to help an orphanage in Osaka, Japan, in 1949.
Tradition of care
continuesDeployed soldiers are present
in spirit as Army families welcome
Japanese orphans for a visit
About 90 seconds after three children from Japan rounded a corner at Honolulu Airport, they were up to their ears in leis from Army families eager to take the orphans home and give them the time of their lives.
Kumiko Nakano, 12, Mizuki Kitagawa, 10, and Hiroto Kokuryo, 10, from the Holy Family Home Orphanage in Osaka, arrived yesterday to spend 10 days with the families of the 27th Infantry Wolfhounds.
During their stay, the three children will visit attractions around Oahu and live with the families of the soldiers, all of whom are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The visit is an annual tradition that continues a 55-year relationship between the Wolfhounds and the orphanage.
And the soldiers weren't about to break tradition just because they couldn't be here to welcome the children.
"They insisted that when they deployed, the tradition must continue even in their absence," said Cynthia Piatt, whose husband is the Wolfhounds' battalion commander and is on a year-long deployment in Iraq.
"Since they've deployed, they've asked about this visit often. Today in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the Wolfhounds are smiling knowing that the bond we share grows even when they are deployed to combat," she said.The relationship with the Holy Family Home began in Osaka in 1949 when the soldiers of 27th Infantry Division adopted the orphanage following a holiday party. When the men saw the poor conditions in which the children were living, they spent Christmas Day lavishing the children with food and gifts. But it wasn't enough.
"The next day, I began to think that we had taken the kids out of a hellish situation, showed them what heaven was like and then sent them back to hell again," said former Master Sgt. Hugh O'Reilly, who was one of those soldiers. "It wasn't a very nice thing for us to do. We were patting ourselves on the back, but we weren't really doing anything for the kids. A lot of the men felt the same way, and it didn't take any effort my part to encourage them to chip in."
Under O'Reilly's encouragement, the soldiers began giving portions of their paychecks to support the orphanage. The donations continue today.
In 1957, 1st Sgt. George Dizon, of Maui, collected money to bring a Holy Family orphan girl to Hawaii to visit. Since then the Wolfhounds have been bringing at least two orphan children to Hawaii annually.
And every year for 47 years, O'Reilly, who will be 90 next month, has been at the airport to welcome the children and watch the relationship between the regiment and the orphanage grow stronger.
"The amazing thing is that these soldiers, never having seen the condition these kids were living in shortly after the war, picked up the tradition and carried it on after so many years. They're an amazing bunch of men."
Yesterday, it was the men's wives and children who continued the tradition.
"I feel very honored and excited to be part of such a wonderful tradition," said host mom Amanda Cagle, whose husband is in Afghanistan until February. "This is such a great thing, and I know that if my husband were here, he would be excited, too."
