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Volume No. 2, Issue No. 6 http://www.moaa-hawaii.org June 2016
(Voices of Warriors)
Na Leo O Na Koa Newsletter of the Hawaii Aloha Chapter,
Affiliate of the Military Officers Association of America
Chartered July 23, 1959
JROTC/ROTC Committee Chair, 2015, Honored Hawaii Aloha Chapter Vice President Ralph Hiatt has had two annual UH ROTC awards named in his honor and was recognized by the State Legislature for his outstanding service to Hawaii and America.
The newly established Ralph Joseph William Kawekiuokalani Hiatt ROTC Award is sponsored by AmVets and will be presented annually to the outstanding 3rd year Army and Air Force ROTC cadet whose achievements and character best em-
body those of Colonel Hiatt.
The first presentation of this award was 5 May at the UH ROTC Joint Awards Ceremony.
At the same ceremony, the Bartrow Marksmanship Award was renamed the Bartrow-Hiatt Marksmanship Award in recognition of Ralph’s record of superior marksmanship as a UH ROTC ca-det and his leadership in creating the Hawaii High School state championship marksmanship awards for the Save Our Sports (SOS) program.
Finally, Ralph was recognized by the State Legislature with a certificate and proclamation, which in part stated: “As a native son of Hawaii, Col. Hiatt was a distinguished cadet in the Uni-versity of Hawaii Army ROTC program, completed a stellar Army career, after which he continued his service for the home and country he loves.”
Colonel (Ret) Hiatt served 26 years in the Army as an aviator and performing duties in special ops, counter terror, intelligence and nuclear arenas. He has over 500-hour combat hours in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars
After retiring, he returned to his beloved Hawaii and has con-tinued to serve, coordinating the annual Veterans Day ceremo-nies at Punchbowl and developing marksmanship programs for Hawaii’s youth. As coordinator for the Hawaii Aloha Chapter’s ROTC and JROTC scholarships and leadership awards pro-grams, he has managed the award of nearly $120,000 in scholar-ships and nearly 1,300 MOAA Leadership Awards for 58 schools throughout Hawaii and the Pacific. Mark Torreano
June Luncheon Our guest speaker at our luncheon at 1130 on Thursday, 30 June, at the Oahu Veter-ans’ Center, is Maui-born Kaneohe resident Gerry Silva, president of AARP Hawaii. He will discuss Hawaii legisla-tive issues related to seniors, retirement and healthcare.
During the past year Silva has served as AARP lead vol-unteer and spokesperson of You’ve Earned a Say, an initia-tive engaging hundreds of Ha-
Please See Luncheon Page 7
Inside June Issue Birthdays 6 Bridge Report 5 Calendar of Events 2 Chaplain’s Corner 4 Chapter Leaders 8 Golf Report 5 Hams Golf Tournament 5 Membership Application 7 Memorial Day 2016 6 Obituaries 4 President’s Message 2 Reservation Form 7 Scholarship Awards 3 Surviving Spouses 4 TUG 6
COL Marvin J. Harris 4-Star Communications Award for Printed Newsletters — 2015
Page 2 Nā Leo O Nā Koa No. 6, June 2016
Hawaii Aloha Chapter, MOAA
President’s Message
By John Ma
Memorial Day, for many, is the unofficial beginning of
summer. However, for many of us, Memorial Day is a time to reflect and remember those who went before us, answering our nation’s call and paying the ultimate price. Let us never forget we live in the “land of the free” because of the brave.
We enjoyed a great tour of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency. Kevin Richards, EMA Natural Hazards Officer, pro-vided us some very interesting tidbits on the history of Diamond Crater and the coastal defense system originally established to
protect Pearl Harbor. Galen Yoshimoto, EMA PR Officer, provided us with an informative brief-ing on the organizational structure of the State Emergency Management Agency and its role in protecting Hawaii from natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, volcanic erup-tions, wildfires and tsunami. Apparently, the only disaster they are not worried about is blizzards. A big Mahalo to Mark Torreano and his team for setting up this informative visit.
“Never stop serving!”
NOTICE This newsletter, my 126th issue of Nā Leo O Nā Koa, is promulgated monthly as an official publication of Ha-waii Aloha Chapter, Military Officers’ Association of America, P.O. Box 201441, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96820.
Views expressed herein are not necessarily chapter policy.
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
4 June 2016 1000, TUG, The MOAA Hawaii Computer (Saturday) Users Group, Oahu Veterans’ Center
17 June 2016 1000, Hawaii Army Museum Society’s (Friday) Annual MG Herbert E. Wolff Golf Tourna- ment, Leilehua Golf Course, Wahiawa
27 June 2016 0900, Golf Outing, Barbers Point Golf (Monday) Course, 91-2219 Roosevelt Avenue, Kapolei
30 June 2016 1130, Buffet Luncheon, Oahu Veterans’ Cen- (Thursday) ter; Guest Speaker: Gerry Silva, President AARP
17 July 2016 1300, Hawaii Aloha Party Bridge, Fahrni Realty (Sunday) Classroom. Hosts: Dayle and Bobbi Carlson
The Trivia Question We sure hear a lot about gender lately... so
what gender is a hermaphrodite?
See Trivia Answer Page 6
Kevin Richards
The 21 Hawaii Aloha Chapter, MOAA, members who toured the Emergency Management Agency, Civil Defense Center, in Diamond Head Crater
Hawaii Aloha
Chapter, MOAA, Presi-dent John Ma, left, presenting an engraved koa bowl
to Galen Yo-shimoto in ap-preciation for our outstanding tour
John Ma con-gratulating Mark Webster with a certificate stating
he had won MOAA’s 4-Star Communications
Award for Printed Newsletters, 2015
No 6, June 2016 Nā Leo O Nā Koa Page 3
Page 4 Nā Leo O Nā Koa No. 6, June 2016
Surviving Spouses By Jayne Henley-Davis MOAA's Surviving Spouse Advi-sory Committee were among 160 participants who "Stormed the Hill" once again, to lobby our Legislators,
with detailed fact sheets and brochures, to ask them to 1) oppose disproportional TRICARE fee hikes and 2) act this year on the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) offset affecting 63,000 surviving military spouses.
Hill Stormers delivered the message that the pro-posed fee increases are disproportionately high for retirees. Any annual fee adjustment should be based on the retiree COLA, not the projected health care cost index growth of 5.2 percent a year.
SBP coverage provides a military spouse up to 55 percent of their service member’s retired pay upon death for any reason. Under current law, survivors of deceased active duty and retired service members who participated in SBP must forfeit dollar-for-dollar from their SBP when military service causes the death and DIC is awarded by the VA, currently $1,254 per month. This means those affected by this inequity lose all or part of their SBP. MOAA has been fight-ing for full repeal of this offset for fifteen years.
In 2008, a Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance (SSIA) was approved by Congress to partially com-pensate for the SBP/DIC injustice. The intent was to continue increasing the SSIA to phase out the offset. Unfortunately, the authority to continue SSIA will end Oct. 1, 2017. If the SSIA is not ex-tended, as provided, then SBP/DIC survivors will lose an additional $310 a month ($3700 a year).
When Storming the Hill, our advisory committee told our legislators that the SBP/DIC offset should be fully repealed, but if sufficient funds could not be found to do so, then the SSIA should be extended and increased to continue phasing out the offset completely.
While they were encouraged by responses from most legislators, they urge us to contact our legislators on these issues, too. MOAA has a direct line, toll free, to the congressional switchboard: (800) 272-6622. Ask the Capitol operator to connect you with your legisla-tor's office and ask to speak with the legislator's legisla-tive assistant or military legislative assistant.
I wonder what would happen if we all called that number and spoke to either assistant? Curious?
Try it.....Let me know your results.
Chaplain’s Corner By Rev. Robert E. Walden Summer is here and with it come all sorts of activities. Graduations are mostly over and thoughts are turning to vacations in earnest. TSA and the airlines have arranged for it to take longer in line than it takes to get to our destination. Our society just seems to be getting more and more complicated the longer it goes on. It always seemed to me to make more sense that our lives should get simpler as life goes on rather than more and more complicated. Yet just the op-posite seems to be true. And I suppose that makes sense because as we get older we get more experi-ences and more to remember. Yet as I get older, I find it harder and harder to remember some things.
As we go through this summer and all of it’s activities, I strongly encourage all to take some time to be alone and relax with yourself. I find that when I do this it becomes a time of refresh-ment and renewal. I find that when I have been away from someone for a while and then we get back together that it becomes a time when our relationship is renewed and strengthened. The bottom line for me is the love that I am able to show to those around me and in turn to receive their love into my life. And, of course, over rid-ing all is the love that God has for me and all of His creation. Jesus’ command was to love as He has loved us. By opening ourselves up to this love, we are able to love more completely. One of the ways of doing this is by spending time with Him and His love which results in us being able to share that love more completely.
Have a wonderful Summer!
TAPS Kuualoha Callanan, Auxiliary; 10 Jan 2016 Alan Hardy, COL, USAF, Ret.; 6 Mar 2016
Gloria Arakawa, Auxiliary; 14 Mar 2016 Gail Hudson-Olsen, wife of Life Member Phil-
lip Olsen, CAPT, USAF; 21 May 2016
Howard S. Okada, 88, CW4, USA, Ret., 30 May; a Korean and Vietnam War veteran. A private cele-bration of life will be held at Arcadia at 0930 on
Sunday, 26 June. His interment ceremony will be at 0930 on Tuesday, 28 June, at Punchbowl.
No 6, June 2016 Nā Leo O Nā Koa Page 5
Hawaii Aloha Chapter Party Bridge
Three tables of party bridge were played on Sunday, 15 May, in the Fahrni Realty Classroom with no substitutes. The session was hosted by Les & Shirley Ihara.
Play began on time at 1 pm, and after 5 rounds of very competitive
play, Jean Wilkinson was the top scorer with 5,570 points. She was closely followed by Bobbi Carlson with 5,320 points, Shirley Ihara with 4,900, Bill Ernst with 4,850, and Dan Matthews with 4,610.
Other contenders were: Dayle Carlson, Jean Chase, Trudi Ernst, Helen Fahrni, Les Ihara, Judy Lutfy, and Joan White. There was no slam bid and made during this session.
The May session marked the half way point of the 2016 Bridge-year, and only 4 points separate the top 4 players. Les Ihara leads with 44 points, followed by Judy Lutfy and Dayle Carlson at 43 points, and Bobbi Carlson at 40 points. And with 5 more months of play, there are many other play-ers who still have a chance of playing well and be-coming the Chapter’s Player of the Year for 2016.
There will be no bridge played in June as agreed to by those present at the above session. There-fore, the next bridge session will be held on Sun-day, 17 July, at the Fahrni Realty Classroom, begin-ning at 1 pm. Dayle & Bobbi Carlson volunteered as hosts. so if interested players have not signed up, they need to call either of them at 456-2903 or email to [email protected] not later than Wednesday, 13 July.
Shirley Ihara
May Golf Report Makeup golf for a prior rainout was held at Mamala Bay, Hickam AFB, JBPHH, on 9 May with 22 members and guests. Blind draw winners for first place was the team of Myron Brumaghim and Bob Nagao. There was a tie for second place by Marvin Baum, Gordon Cho, Janice Kinoshita and Ira Tagawa.
For the second outing of the month on 25 May, 16 golfers played at the Navy Marine Golf Course. Coming in First were Walt Kinoshita and Curtis Lee followed by Janice Kinoshita and Gary Hara. In third place was the paring of Dianne Hara and Marvin Baum.
Next month our golf outing will be at Bar-bers Point Golf Course on Monday, 27 June,
Finally, I am reminded of a quote from Jimmy DeMaret: “Golf and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at either of them.” Aloha!
Curtis Lee
Seated, left to right, Jean Wilkinson, Shirley Ihara, & Bobbi Carlson. Standing, Bill Ernst
& Dan Mathews This year’s tournament will again be held on Friday, 17 June, at the Leilehua Golf Course.
As we have done in the past, we are looking for volunteers to support the tournament on that day. Some of the positions that may still be available for volunteers are serving as Greeters, Registra-tion, Food/Servers, Par 3 Monitors, R e f r e s h -ment/Water Cart, Putting/Chipping Contest, and odds and ends.
Please mark your calendars and let Walt Kino-shita, our Hawaii Aloha Chapter Golf Tourna-ment Coordinator, at 395-9570 or [email protected], know if you will be available to support/play the HAMS tournament. If you are interested in serving in a specific area, please let him know.
Your support is greatly appreciated, Walt
Page 6 Nā Leo O Nā Koa No. 6, June 2016
TUG (The MOAA Hawaii
User Group)
by Lou Torraca
http://www.the-tug.org
In the spirit of equal opportunity, since I re-counted the history of Mother’s Day last month, here is The Earliest History of Father's Day:
Scholars believe that the origin of Father's Day is not a latest phenomenon, as many believe it to be. Rather they claim that the tradition of Father's Day can be traced in the ruins of Babylon. They have recorded that a young boy called Elmesu carved a Father's Day message on a card made out of clay nearly 4,000 years ago. Elmesu wished his Babylonian father good health and a long life. Though there is no record of what happened to Elmesu and his father but the tradition of celebrating Father's Day remained in several countries all over the world. Time-shifting to the present day, here are a few ideas for tech-savvy Dads:
The Fitbit Alta is a stylish fitness tracker with swappable bands, basic phone notifica-tions and week-long battery life. The new "Move" alerts bring something new. Fit-bit's software is still one of our favorites, and has the largest social base as well.
Cocoon Innovations's Laptop Case This airport-friendly laptop case is ideal for the dad who's always on the go. It’s a shock-absorbent molded case that features the proprietary
GRID-IT! organization system—a rubberized com-partment inside the case that holds gadgets firmly in place. It accommodates laptops with up to a 15.4-inch screen and has a detachable/adjustable padded shoulder strap and padded handles. Choose from seven colors, including red, black, and light gray.
S500: Ultra-compact, noise isolating alumin-ium in-ear headphone Featuring an ultra-
compact, noise isolating design and light-weight, aluminium alloy construction the S500 uses micro dynamic driver technol-ogy to deliver exciting, immersive and de-
tailed sound reproduction.
If none of these fit the bill, a Filet Mignon, a good bottle of wine, and a Cuban cigar may suffice.
Have a Happy Father’s Day!
Aloha, Young Pooky & Young Lou
Trivia Answer
Both male and female! Has the main and sec-ondary attributes of both a male and a female,
such as in a worm or some plants. What a thrill!
Frank Bendrick 6/01 Alta Hackenson 6/01 Patricia Tiahrt 6/01 Gerald Coffee 6/02 Betty Lenhart 6/04 David Belatti 6/05 Robert Fishman 6/05 Shigeru Kataloka 6/05 Conrad Rodenbeck 6/07 William Duffey 6/08 Richard Vonier 6/09 Bruce Holmberg 6/10 Melvin Kau 6/10 Richard Leong 6/11 Eugene Kreinik 6/14
Alan Lloyd 6/15 Paul Schmitz 6/17 John Dodson 6/18 Charles Miller 6/18 Ken Munechika 6/18 Roy Ota 6/18 Shirley Grant 6/20 Jane Kekoa 6/21 Tom Marzec 6/21 Robert Blew 6/24 Stephen Logan 6/24 Richard Hacker 6/27 William Leggett 6/28 David Lerps 6/28 Clyde McAllister 6/29
Hau'oli lā hānau! Partial List of
June Babies
Memorial Day 2016
Hawaii Aloha Chapter’s wreath and, right, Mark Webster about to present it at the Mayor’s Memorial Day Ceremony at the Na-tional Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl Walter Ozawa photo
Mark Webster displaying our chapter flag and ti leaf lei prior to the Parade of Flags and Presenta-tion of Lei at the Governor’s Me-morial Day Ceremony at the Ha-waii Veterans’ Cemetery, Kaneohe.
Hawaii Youth ChalleNGe Academy Cadet Hauk photo
No. 6, June 2016 Nā Leo O Nā Koa Page 7
Luncheon from Front Page
waii residents on the future of Social Security and Medicare. In that capacity he has spoken at 40 community events state-wide, meeting hundreds of members and older residents from Lihue to Hilo.
Silva is a retired Army colonel who served for over a decade as Chief of Staff of the Hawaii Army National Guard. Other highlights of his professional career include executive posi-tions in federal, state and county agencies in Hawaii. In 2009 he retired as Chief Operating Offi-cer of Olelo Community Televi-sion. Prior to that he was Dep-uty Director of the Customer Services Department, City and County of Honolulu, and Di-rector of Communications and Special Projects for the Ha-waii Tourism Authority.
Non-Profit Org.
US Postage
PAID
Permit No. 702
Honolulu
Hawaii
Directors Effective 1 May 2015
George Sullivan, USN — Chairman 623-2243 [email protected] Tamara Degraffenread, USA 334-237-1579 [email protected] Lawrence Enomoto, USAF 685-1521 [email protected] Wesley Fong, USA 595-6127 [email protected] Ralph Hiatt, USA 383-1010 [email protected] John Kim, USAF 988-3349 [email protected] John Ma, USA 486-4805 [email protected] Ira Tagawa, USA 487-5448 [email protected] Mark Torreano, USAF 343-4877 [email protected]
2016 Hawaii Aloha Chapter Leadership Executive Committee, Com-
mittee Chairs & Activities President: John Ma, USA
486-4805 [email protected]
Vice Presidents: Mark Torreano, USAF 343-4877 [email protected] & Ralph Hiatt, USA
395-5935 [email protected]
Secretary: Ira Tagawa, USA
487-5448 [email protected]
Treasurer: John Kim, USAF
988-3349 [email protected]
Surviving Spouses: Jayne Henley-Davis
263-4248 [email protected]
Chaplain: Bob Walden, USAF
348-4868 [email protected]
Community Affairs: Wesley Fong, USA 595-6127
JROTC/ROTC: Antoinette Correia, USA 721-0401 toni_correia/CIB/ [email protected] Legislative Liaison: Robert Lee, USA 486-1488 [email protected] & Tom Smyth, USMC
531-2829 [email protected]
Hawaii Aloha Chapter
Military Officers Association
Of America
P.O. Box 201441
Honolulu HI 96820-1356
Executive Committee, Commit-
tee Chairs & Activities (Cont.) Membership: Lawrence Enomoto, USAF 685-1521 [email protected]
Personal Affairs: Lou Crompton, USAF 526-3022 [email protected]
Programs: Mark Torreano, USAF 342-4877 [email protected]
Publications/PR: Mark Webster, USN 734-5994 [email protected]
Veterans Affairs: George Sullivan, USN 623-2243 [email protected]
Bridge: Shirley Ihara 239-7947 [email protected]
Fundraising: Herb Nakagawa, USAF 271-1172 [email protected]
Golf: Walt Kinoshita, USA, 395-9570 [email protected] & Curtis Lee, USA 389-8568 [email protected]
TUG: Lou Torraca, USAF 254-3286 [email protected]
Webmaster: Bob Ranaldo
203-510-6279 [email protected] Scholarship Fund Trustees
Chairman: Curtis Lee, USA, 389-8568 [email protected]