Nearly 40 years after his ordeal as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, the newest memorial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl holds special meaning for retired Navy Capt. Jim Hickerson.
Hickerson, a POW for more than five years, was held captive in two Hanoi prisons after his plane was shot down Dec. 22, 1967, near the North Vietnamese city of Haiphong. He was finally released March 14, 1973, during Operation Homecoming.
Punchbowl’s Vietnam Memorial Pavilion will be unveiled during Sunday’s annual Veterans Day ceremony.
"I think what Gene (Castagnetti, director of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific) has done and what the cemetery up there is doing at Punchbowl is great," said Hickerson, 78.
"It’s absolutely great. It’s about time," the Pacific Heights resident said.
Hickerson’s wife, Carole, 73, has as much vested interest in the new memorial as her husband. Not only is she married to a Vietnam veteran, she was widowed when Marine Corps Maj. Steve Hanson went missing in action during the war in 1967.
His remains were later found and identified and are now buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Carole Hickerson also helped start the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding and bringing home POWs and MIAs from the Vietnam War, in 1970.
"I’m really, really pleased that the cemetery out here is doing this," she said of the new Punchbowl pavilion. "The Vietnam soldiers that came home didn’t get any recognition or respect from the public, so it just is really heartwarming that they’re beginning to get more recognition."
Sunday’s 10 a.m. dedication ceremony will mark the opening of the Vietnam pavilion as well as a second pavilion that will serve as an orientation center for the memorial.
"It’s been a long time since we dedicated a new part to a memorial," said Tim Nosal, American Battle Monuments Commission director of public affairs. "Not since we built the World War IImemorial on the Mall in D.C. in 2004."
U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka is the event’s keynote speaker, and Max Cleland, a former U.S. senator from Georgia and current ABMC secretary, will also speak.
The Vietnam pavilion — the only Vietnam War memorial financed solely with federal funds, according to Cleland — will house two mosaic maps of the Vietnam War. The maps were designed by Mary Jacobs, a Maryland native who also designed the World War II and Korean War mosaic maps at the memorial, and were constructed by Illinois-based The Armbruster Co.
Both pavilions were designed by Honolulu architecture firm Fung Associates Inc. and constructed by Aiea-based Innovative-Mira Joint Venture.
TheHonolulu District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers oversaw the nearly $5 million projec
VETERANS DAY EVENTS
Sunday
>> Annual Veterans Day Ceremony, 10 a.m., National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka will be the keynote speaker. Open to the public.
>> Governor’s Veterans Day Ceremony, 1 p.m., Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery, Kaneohe. Gov. Neil Abercrombie will be the keynote speaker. Army Spc. Craig Middleton, a Silver Star and Purple Heart recipient, will be the special guest. Open to the public.
>> Battleship Missouri Memorial Veterans Day Sunset Ceremony, 4:30 p.m. RSVPdeadline for public to attend was Oct. 30.
Monday
>> The U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii will honor veterans by opening its doors Monday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be a book signing from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. for a manga (comic created in Japan) about the legendary accomplishments of the World War II Japanese-American soldiers of the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team. For more information, call 438-2821 or visit the museum website at www.hiarmymuseumsoc.org. The Waikiki museum at Fort DeRussy is free and offers validated parking.
|
