HANAPEPE — A sixth-grade student clutched a piece of paper in her hand laden with lei, Wednesday. “I’m going to visit my uncle and my grandpa when we’re done,” she announced. Students from the Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School leadership class,
HANAPEPE — A sixth-grade student clutched a piece of paper in her hand laden with lei, Wednesday.
“I’m going to visit my uncle and my grandpa when we’re done,” she announced.
Students from the Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School leadership class, under the direction of Tifney Bertram, the school’s student activities director, arrived with more than 700 lei to be placed on graves at Hanapepe Veterans Cemetery in preparation for the annual Veterans Day service today.
“I have big shoes to fill,” Bertram said. “I’m replacing Jodie Gusman, but the students didn’t argue. They were looking forward to this project.”
Bertram said the leadership class is an honors elective at the school and involves student activities and service projects, the Hanapepe Veterans Cemetery being one of the service projects started by Gusman several years ago.
“The kids had a lot of fun working on this,” Bertram said. “They got other students to help make lei, turning it into somewhat of a game.”
Bill Honjiyo of the Kaua‘i Veterans Council was on hand to meet the students, along with several people from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Mana.
“That Capt. (Nicholas) Mongillo is a man of his word,” Honjiyo said. “He said he wanted to have some people here to help, and they’re here.”
Honjiyo himself joined the students in placing the lei, noting that there were several headstones marking graves of soldiers who lost their lives while rescuing the “Lost” battalion in World War II.
“Visiting the Hanapepe Veterans Cemetery is kind of like visiting the history books,” Honjiyo said. “When you see all the headstones, you realize you know them, or their families, and you can’t help but think about what they gave.”
The leadership students shared that same bond, noticing names on headstones that were similar to their schoolmates and wondering if they had any relations.
One of the more than dozen students said she was returning later in the day when the West Kaua‘i Hongwanji was going to decorate graves with flowers under its Lonesome Grave project.
Ed Kawamura, chair of the 2010 Veterans Day service, said in an e-mail that Veterans Day gives Americans the opportunity to celebrate the bravery and sacrifice of all United States veterans.
But most Americans confuse this holiday with Memorial Day, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Referring to “The History of Veterans Day,” the holiday was formerly known as Armistice Day, originally set as a legal holiday to honor the end of World War I, which officially took place on Nov. 11, 1918.
Legislation passed in 1938 to designate Nov. 11 as “dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as “Armistice Day.”
This changed in 1954 after the nation went through World War II and the Korean War.
The 83rd U.S. Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by replacing the word “Armistice” with the word “Veterans.”
Kawamura said Memorial Day honors service members who died in service to their country, or as a result of injuries incurred during battle.
Deceased veterans are also remembered on Veterans Day, but the day is set aside to thank and honor living veterans who served honorably in the military — in wartime or peace.
The public is invited to the annual Veterans Day service hosted by the Kaua‘i Veterans Council at the Hanapepe Veterans Cemetery.
“The service starts at 11 a.m., but we’ll be here early because families come to visit graves and there are things that need to be set up,” Honjiyo said. “Everyone is welcome.”
Public libraries and government offices will be closed today.
