• Remembering our servicepeople in Iraq Remembering our servicepeople in Iraq On this Monday The Garden Island is honoring our servicemen and servicewomen who are serving in Iraq with a special section in our news pages. News week that members
• Remembering our servicepeople in Iraq
Remembering our servicepeople in Iraq
On this Monday The Garden Island is honoring our servicemen and servicewomen who are serving in Iraq with a special section in our news pages. News week that members of the Hawai‘i National Guard are moving into position in Iraq make this Valentine’s Day special feature an important one to many Kaua‘i residents.
The large movement of troops from Hawai‘i is only matched in the past by the draft and volunteerism of World War II and of the Vietnam Era for Kaua‘i. On the Mainland, communities can recall the sacrifice, North and South, of hundreds of local soldiers, while Hawai‘i was then the Kingdom of Hawai‘i, with a relatively small number of soldiers fighting in the war, some cited as Sandwich Islanders like Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong, a hero at Gettysburg for the North, and later a founder of the Hampton Institute in Virginia.
We are receiving many heartfelt greetings from families and friends to their loved ones in Iraq. The mother of the Army captain who is leading the 299th, the unit with many Kaua‘i National Guard members in it, has contacted us, apparently contacted about our special section through her son’s soldiers.
Copies of the special issue will be sent at no charge to the APO addresses of our Kaua‘i servicepeople. We hope that getting an issue of The Garden Island with the well wishes of the folks back home will give them a taste of Kaua‘i halfway around the world.
With the war in Iraq possibly stretching on for months, if not years, Kaua‘i’s connection to our troops is likely to be a long-term one. Hopefully our special section will be just one of many reminders of homes our servicepeople will receive during their potentially dangerous tour of duty.
