From a military command center in 'Aiea where the war plans were directed, to an R&R outpost in Waikiki where weary troops could unwind, Hawai'i was intimately and integrally involved in the Vietnam War.The Islands served as a staging place for troops headed for Vietnam. Over the course of the war, hundreds of thousands of servicemen and servicewomen passed through Hawai'i.
The Islands served as host to two U.S. presidents who held summit meetings here with South Vietnamese leaders.
From 1966 to 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson flew to Hawai'i six times to meet with South Vietnamese leaders, including presidents Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky. The first meeting produced the "Declaration of Honolulu," which pledged to create a social revolution.
In 1969, President Nixon met with Thieu on Midway Island, where the U.S. president announced the withdrawal of 25,000 American troops.
Hawai'i welcomed back POWs as they touched U.S. soil for the first time since their release. The first arrived on Valentine's Day 1973 to a patriotic greeting at Hickam Air Force Base.
But the most heartfelt aloha went to three Hawai'i sons who arrived six weeks later: Marine William Thomas Jr. and Army soldiers Tom Kobashigawa and Thomas Horio. There were a lot of teary eyes among the 3,000 well-wishers when Thomas hugged his two sons. "All the 'thank yous' in the world would not be able to express my gratitude for this warm welcome," Horio told the crowd.
The welcome was no less enthusiastic about 18 months later when civilian Emmet J. Kay, a Honolulu resident and former Aloha Airlines pilot, arrived home in September 1974. At the time, he was the last American known to be a POW. Kay had been under government contract when ground fire forced his plane down in Laos, where he was captured by communists and held in a cave.
Hawai'i was a place of healing, too. More than 4,200 battlefield casualties were transferred to Tripler Army Medical Center for recovery.
For some, Hawai'i became — far too soon — a final resting place. Nearly 270 Hawai'i men died in the conflict.
Early in the war, Hawai'i was tapped as an R&R destination — for rest and recreation. In May 1966 it was viewed as a test project, with Fort DeRussy and its stretch of Waikiki Beach serving as host.
Marine and Army wives in the Islands received much of the credit for keeping the idea alive through local petitions sent to Congress, where Sen. Daniel K. Inouye got the deal sealed through his behind-the-scenes work with the Department of Defense.
More than half a million servicemen and servicewomen were brought to Hawai'i on R&R flights during the Vietnam War, and the financial impact was huge. Spending by the military people, their friends and family who flew to Hawai'i to greet them topped $191 million from August 1966 to early 1973.
Hawai'i also was a place for anti-war protests.
In summer 1969, several AWOL military men took sanctuary in a pair of Honolulu churches. They were arrested after a few days, however, when military police raided the churches.
