GEN. COLIN POWELL‘S announcement promoting the "Call for Photos" of Hawaii service personnel who were killed in the Vietnam War is running on TV. Pictures will be displayed in the Education Center at The Wall in Washington, D.C. Billie Gabriel, Kamehameha class of ’69, is coordinating the Hawaii project.
Easter marked 50 years since Billie’s brother, James Kimo Gabriel Jr., Farrington ’56, was the first service member from Hawaii and the first Green Beret killed in action. After Billie was seen on a recent TV show remembering her brother, she was contacted by a Green Beret who helped recover Kimo’s body, and another who was in his wedding in Okinawa when he married his Nobue. Since Powell’s announcement started this month, Billie has received 13 photos. She needs 167 more to complete the total of the 312 Hawaii casualties. Call Billie, 497-7264, with photo info.
Other isle casualties besides Gabriel pictured in Powell’s announcement are: Norman Buell, Kaimuki ’59; Frank Akana, Aiea ’67; Anthony Bongo, Waianae ’65; Rodney Pavao, Waimea ’66; and Mark Hambleton, Punahou ’65. Airman Albert Kuewa‘s name will be added to The Wall next month at a Washington Memorial Day ceremony. "I plan to attend, and accompanying me will be Leighton Tseu, representing the Royal Order of Kamehameha Moku o Kona," Billie said. Kuewa was a ’61 Waialua graduate. Forty-six years after his death he is receiving this honor, after the secret mission on which he was killed was declassified, thanks to the efforts of his childhood friend, Ben Ishida …
PHILANTHROPIST Carolyn Berry will marry retired Navy pilot Capt. David Wilson Aug. 11 in Marshall, N.C. An engagement luncheon was held recently in the captain’s cabin of the Battleship Missouri. Hosts were Paul Brown and Ruth Ann Becker, a member of the Mighty Mo’s board. The gathering included William and Virginia Hinshaw, Gary Edmund Morris and Donna Bebber …
MORE THAN two dozen past and present news staffers from KHNL and KGMB attended an aloha party for Hawaii News Now reporter and anchor Minna Sugimoto, who ended her 14-year TV news career. The party was held at Brooks Baehr‘s home April 14. Sugimoto is now communications chief at Hawk Tree International. Attending the affair were: Stephanie Lum, Teri Okita, Keoki Kerr, Lyle Galdeira, Russ Yamanoha, Diane Ako, Garett Kamemoto, Beth Hillyer and Chuck Parker. Several of them attended a bridal shower the next day for Cindy Paliracio of OC16. Hosts were Ako and Maile Akita, whose husband, Darin Akita, is a Hawaii News Now photographer. Paliracio’s guy is Navy man Phillip "Rocky" Rockwell …
BOTTOMING OUT: Sarah Palin fired back at a Secret Service agent, forced to retire in the Colombia hooker scandal, who made a remark on Facebook about guarding her in 2008 when she was running for vice president. David Chaney‘s comment read: "I was really checking her out, if you know what I mean?" That brought Palin’s salvo over Fox News: "Well check this out bodyguard, you’re fired. And I hope his wife kicks his okole and sends him to the dog house." Palin attended Hawaii Pacific University for a semester in 1982 and no doubt picked up on the Hawaiian word okole while here …
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Ben Wood, who sold newspapers on Honolulu streets in World War II, writes of people, places and things. Email him at bwood@staradvertiser.com.
