Fund-raiser will honor POWs for serving country
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
Bill Thomas, a former Vietnamese prisoner of war, will receive his honor as a Hawai'i "patriot" later this month and then quietly slip back to his life of anonymity.
"I'll gladly disappear into my shadow," he said.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
Paul Heinberg, left, and Joseph Park fought in different wars, but food was an integral part of their experiences.
The 65-year-old Thomas, like many of the more than 50 POWs from World War II, Korea and Vietnam now living in Hawai'i, will grudgingly accept the Hawaii Foodbank's annual honor, in part, because the peacetime needs of Hawai'i's homeless and poor resonate with their wartime need for food.
"I know what it's like to not eat much," said Thomas, a Marine who served three tours in Vietnam before he was shot down in an observation plane, wounded, then shuttled between prisons for nearly a year.
"Where we were," Thomas said, "we needed nutrition badly."
The Sept. 14 fund-raiser at the Hilton Hawaiian Village for the first time will bring together Hawai'i POWs from three wars.
They are men from different generations who fought on different battlefields. But they are joined by uncommon stories of brutal mistreatment, death and survival.
Their service in war is enough to earn them honors at the sixth "Patriots Celebration," said Cynthia Luke, communications manager at the Hawaii Foodbank.
Then through interviews with some of the POWs, the foodbank saw food as a common thread.
"When they were held captive, some of the men said the thing that kept them going was thoughts of food and what they would eat when they were freed," Luke said.
They are men such as Joseph Park, 74, an Army private in Korea who spent 26 months in captivity as dozens of other men died around him of disease and malnutrition.
WWII pilot Heinberg lost 80 pounds during 21 months of Italian and German captivity.
"It was rough," he said. "Guys were dying around you left and right. For food, they gave us millet and sorghum that you couldn't eat."
Paul Heinberg, 77, weighed 165 pounds when he was piloting a B-26 bomber during World War II.
After 21 months in captivity by the Italians and Germans, Heinberg weighed only 85 pounds when Gen. George Patton's tanks took over Stalag 7A and freed 110,000 POWs.
"We were all starving," Heinberg said. "There was not enough food to begin to feed us."
The men were taken to France, where Heinberg's first real meal in nearly two years was a thick steak that he could not digest.
"We were used to having no food," he said.
Heinberg and the other men were so hungry that they threw up and then went back for more.
Three steaks in all, for Heinberg.
"Yes I went through three of them," Heinberg said. "But they were short-lived."
In this peacetime era, the aim is that hunger can be addressed without such urgency, and the Patriots Celebration plays a part in meeting that goal.
At the ceremony, held on POW/MIA National Recognition Day, the Hawaii Foodbank and Hilton Hawaiian Village have a surprise for the POWs.
They call it a "dream meal," and Luke thinks it's fit for a patriot.
Proceeds from the Hawaii Foodbank's Patriots Celebration support foodbanks throughout the state. For details about the foodbank or the event, call 836-3600, ext. 228.
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.
Correction: A previous version of this story listed an incorrect date for the fund-raiser.
