Maui ex-Marine finally receives his Bronze Star
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Joseph U. Momoa Kamaka stood beneath the flagpole at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i in the rain-drenched morning yesterday and told his family, a few old friends and about 100 young Marines a Vietnam war story.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
It was an old story; he'd been repeating it for 33 years and eight months. He knew the details well because they played vividly and often through his memory, sometimes coming unbidden and late at night, the sounds a bit more disturbing than the images.
Brig. Gen. Chip Parker pinned the Bronze Star on Joseph U. Momoa Kamaka yesterday at the Marine Corps base in Kane'ohe. Kamaka was recognized for valor in combat in Vietnam in 1967.
Somehow, though, he was never able to make the telling seem real enough.
"You could tell some people were thinking, 'Yeah, just another war story,'" Kamaka said.
Yesterday morning, with the U.S. and POW/MIA flags flying overhead in Kane'ohe, a Marine Corps band standing by and a brigadier general standing beside him, the telling was different.
Yesterday, Kamaka knew everyone believed him.
Brig. Gen. Chip Parker, commander of the Marine base, awarded Kamaka a Bronze Star and a second Purple Heart for his heroic actions in the Que Son Valley of Vietnam on Sep. 6, 1967. Those were the actions Kamaka had been describing all those years.
"He saved the lives of not only the Marines in his team and his platoon commander, but, in my opinion, the lives of two companies who were surrounded and under threat of being completely wiped out," Parker said.
The award, Parker confessed, "took a long time in the processing."
A seriously injured platoon commander — whom Kamaka helped to rescue — and the demands of wartime caused the first delays, Parker said. The citation slipped through the cracks.
Once it had been delayed for three years, by law it could not be awarded. Congress changed that law in 1996, Parker said. Now veterans going back to World War II can be recognized for efforts like Kamaka's.
Parker gave a brief description of Kamaka's actions in Operation Swift, a piece of history also described in a recently published book, "Honor the Warrior: The United States Marine Corps in Vietnam." Parker then gave the microphone to Kamaka, the 54-year-old husband, father, grandfather and longtime resident of Maui. Kamaka filled in the details.
The Marines listened to his story.
"My jaw was dropped the entire time," said Lance Cpl. Jacoby Brown. "You hear about stuff like that in the movies."
Kamaka was a 19-year-old Marine lance corporal at the time, known to his comrades in Kilo Company as "Pineapple." He was a warrior known for his ferocity in a company known for its high kill ratio. Kilo was called to participate in Operation Swift, a battle in the Que Son Valley that raged from Sept. 4 through Sep. 15.
A Marine rifle company had been surrounded by a much larger North Vietnamese Army regiment and was being badly beaten. A second company was sent to rescue them, but that company was also quickly surrounded. Then, on Sept. 6, Kilo Company went in.
By nightfall, Kilo company was pinned down by enemy machine-gun and small-arms fire. Several of Kamaka's fellow Marines were hit, and his platoon commander, Lt. Dave Blizzard, was down with bullet wounds to both legs. Beyond the gunfire, Kamaka could hear the screams of the wounded and dying men of the companies that had gone before them.
Kamaka asked two Marines to go with him, and led an advance against the machine gun nest.
The three of them, crawling and firing, advanced about 100 feet, but their forward movement wasn't helping. The machine gun was still firing and the men behind them were still in danger. Kamaka and his two companions wouldn't last long if they continued to fire without taking out the machine gun; the enemy would soon calculate their position.
Kamaka stood, in full view of the enemy soldiers, and fired an M-79 grenade launcher. With one shot, he took out the machine gun.
The remainder of the North Vietnamese soldiers directed their gunfire at Kamaka and his two companions. The rest of Kilo Company moved in to assist the two companies of dying men.
Kamaka said the darkest part of the night passed slowly, with his head wedged between rocks to protect himself from the gunfire, shrapnel wounds to his legs. A blast had wounded him and killed his companions. His rifle was lost.
As daylight approached, enemy soldiers came near, bayoneting dying men on the field. Kamaka said he grasped a grenade and decided that if they came for him, he wouldn't go alone.
Just as the enemy drew near, "Puff the Magic Dragon" an airborne gunship that fired high-caliber rounds and completely cleared huge circles of ground with gunfire, approached from over the hills. Kamaka said he and the North Vietnamese soldiers quickly lost interest in each other as they all sought cover from the American airplane.
Once the Vietnamese and Puff were gone, Kamaka said he crawled back to where they had left Lt. Blizzard, who was still alive and still waiting to be evacuated. Kamaka waited with him, surrounded by dead or dying Marines.
Kamaka, according to "Honor the Warrior: The United States Marine Corps in Vietnam," stayed in Vietnam after being wounded twice more, rejecting the Purple Hearts offered him so that he could remain with his unit instead of being sent home.
A final wound left part of one leg paralyzed, and ended his time in the military.
Blizzard, who recovered from his wounds and made a career of the Marines, was one of the authors of the book, "Honor the Warrior." Until the book was published last year, Kamaka and Blizzard had each thought the other dead. Their reunion was joyous, and Kamaka suspects Blizzard and another officer who knew Kamaka from Vietnam were involved in securing the belated medals.
Yesterday, Kamaka warned the young Marines in Kane'ohe that, in the face of battle, they will find themselves asking a very important question:
"What the hell am I doing here?"
Then their training will kick in, he said, and they will do what they have to do, for themselves, their country and especially for their fellow Marines.
"You will make the right decisions," Kamaka said. "I know that, because you are Marines."
He told them how proud he was that his oldest son, Joe, had been a Marine, carrying on a tradition that stretched back to Kamaka's father and grandfather.
He said after the ceremony that although he'd looked forward to the awards for more than three decades, spending the night on the Marine base Thursday felt odd.
He hadn't been in military surroundings for a long time. He found himself feeling claustrophobic and nervous. The memories came clearly again. As usual, the screams of the dying Marines were foremost.
"I hope," Kamaka said, "this will bring some closure."
