Harry Medeiros
In 1940, 16-year-old Harry Medeiros was restless.
He was attending school and working at his stepfather’s dairy farm. A 10th-grader at Kohala High School at the time, he’d rise early, milk cows, deliver the goods, and then walk more than 5 miles each morning to school.
Life was rough, Medeiros said, and he wanted a change.
“It was a lot of work,” Medeiros, now 92, said during an interview last week at Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home. “I did that for years and years and years, but it didn’t satisfy me.”
So, Medeiros decided to join the Army.
At first, he was turned down — he was too young, he was told. But eventually, he was allowed: It was World War II, he said, and the military “didn’t care who they picked up as long as they got somebody to fight.”
Medeiros was assigned to the 27th Infantry Division. He was sent to the Mariana Islands in 1944, where he fought in the Battle of Saipan. His division also fought in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg. More than 150,000 people died in the battle, which Medeiros recalls vividly.
“That was a deadly one,” he said. “We lost a lot of boys. A lot of friends.”
Medeiros also worked as a squad leader, training soldiers for the front lines, and also was stationed in Korea and Vietnam. He served a total of about 20 years in the Army and said losing comrades was among the most difficult parts about serving in the military.
“I lost a lot of good friends (in war),” Medeiros said. “It’s just as bad if you lose your own son. When they’re in my company, I have to take care of them. I have to tell them what to do. Everything’s got to go according to what you want. And (every) outfit you go to, it’s the same way. You get friends, you lose them, you cry, but you can’t do that. That’s how it is.”
In 1946, Medeiros was sent back to the Big Island as part of a 90-day furlough. That’s when he said he met his wife, who has since died. The two went dancing together and immediately felt a connection.
“We got married one week (after meeting) and started raising children,” Medeiros said. “We took a chance and decided to see what happened. I was married to her for 66 years. So it must have been good.”
After the military, Medeiros said he forged a career as a harvesting superintendent at a Paauilo sugar plantation. Looking back, he said he is proud to be an American and to have served his country.
“My life was all Army,” he said. “I enjoyed my time.”
Carl Halstead
For years, when Carl Halstead saw uniformed soldiers perusing aisles in KTA Super Stores or dining out at local restaurants, he’d give them money.
“Thank you for your service,” Halstead would say to the floored soldier or veteran as he pressed cash into their hand.
Halstead, now 73, said he felt connected to them — he spent decades serving in the military himself.
Halstead is a Vietnam War veteran who served in the Army and the Navy. He was stationed in countries including Fiji, Japan and Kiribati, and remained in the Army Reserves until retirement. For years, he’d fly to Oahu every month for active duty.
Further details about his service are largely unknown. Halstead now has dementia, one of many health problems he’s suffered as a result of being exposed to Agent Orange — a toxic herbicide deployed by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.
To this day, Halstead becomes visibly emotional when asked about his time in Vietnam.
“I’d like to forget,” he told the Tribune-Herald.
But despite the health sacrifices, the veteran remains “very patriotic” and puts his country first, his wife, Carol Halstead said. For years, he’d rise each morning at the crack of dawn to hoist an American flag in front of the couple’s home in the Sunrise Estates subdivision in Hilo. In the evening, he’d ceremoniously take it down.
“That’s how patriotic he was,” Carol Halstead said. “He would volunteer for anything regarding his country. He’s always been like that — very, very patriotic.”
Halstead hails from Rochester, N.Y. He moved to Hawaii years ago for a job as an assistant technical superintendent at Hawaii Electric Light Co. He joined the armed forces in his 20s — a recent college graduate at the time who wanted to serve his country.
“It was cold in the winters (in Rochester),” Carol Halstead said. “That’s for sure.”
Halstead was in the Army Reserves on Sept. 11, 2001, working at HELCO. When he got word of the terrorist attacks, he immediately wanted to fly to Ground Zero in New York City and help, his wife recalls.
“They really needed all the help they could get there,” she said.
Instead, Halstead was mobilized to Japan, where he spent eight months working at the emergency operations center of Camp Zama, an Army post located in the eastern part of the country.
Halstead began experiencing symptoms from Agent Orange exposure about 10 years ago, his wife said. In 2007, he suffered a bout with prostate cancer.
Halstead has resided at the Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home since June. To this day, however, he appreciates being thanked for his service by people in the community and saluted by fellow veterans upon seeing his veterans ID, Carol Halstead said.
“His country comes first, above all,” she said. “And I guess that’s always been in him. He wanted everybody — his kids and grandkids — to be free and live in a free country, so that’s why he fought. … When he sees other veterans, he feels like he’s part of them.”
Email Kirsten Johnson at kjohnson@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
