1,399th nisei vets will not receive replica

The 500 bronze replicas of the Congressional Gold Medal will be given only to surviving Japanese-American soldiers of the 100th Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service who attend a luncheon Dec. 17 at the Hawai’i Convention Center.

Pauline Sato, president of the 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans, said she erred by including the nisei, or second-generation, Japanese-American veterans of 1,399th Engineer Construction battalion who served during World War II building military facilities on Oahu.

Sato said the October 2010 federal law authorizing the gold medal honors only nisei Japanese-American soldiers who served in the 100th Battalion, the 442nd and the MIS.

To be eligible for the bronze replica coins donated by BAE Systems, the soldiers must have served from Dec. 7, 1941, to Dec. 31, 1946, Sato said.

But Sato said the soldiers of the 1,399th Battalion will be recognized at the December luncheon.

UH exhibit tells stories of veteran alumni

The University of Hawaii at Manoa is featuring an exhibit on alumni who served in wars from World War I through the Vietnam War. The university said Thursday the show uses letters, journals, posters and photographs to relate the veterans’ stories.

Jim Cartwright and Lynn Davis from University Archives and the Special Research Collections curated the exhibit. It will be on display through March in the Moir Reading Room at Hamilton Library on the university’s Manoa campus.

The university will have a notebook at the exhibit in which people may write about their own experience as an alumnus veteran or about family members who attended the university and served.

The school says the notebook will help the library document and pay tribute to university heroes.

NEIGHBOR ISLANDS

Flimflammery gets isle couple a year in prison

A Maui couple has been sentenced to one year in prison for swindling 21 people on Kauai out of money in the 1990s by promising rights and benefits under a Hawaiian kingdom that was to be established.

The Garden Island newspaper reported that Circuit Judge Laurel Loo ordered Steven and April Schaefer on Thursday to report to Kauai Community Correctional Center on Nov. 26. The scam took place on Kauai, but the Schaefers now live on Maui.

The couple must pay nearly $34,000 in restitution to their victims.

Victims paid for future land rights and settlements the Hawaiian kingdom would supposedly reap when it regained control of the islands from the United States. Some bought driver’s licenses and birth certificates.

The couple has lost multiple appeals over the past 13 years.

Road repairs now under way at Volcanoes

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park officials have begun a three-month project to repave and repair the road leading in and out of the park.

In the work that began Thursday, one lane into the park is closed while crews repair stone curbs and repair the sidewalk. Work will progress in three phases through late January.

Crews are also resetting the historic stone shoulders on Crater Rim Drive near the Steam Vents area. This project is expected to be completed in late November. Repairs are also being made to other sections of Crater Rim Drive.

Check www.nps.gov/havo for updates.