In their pink, hand-lettered "Valentines For Vets," the 12-year-olds lay it on the line:

"You worked hard and did good," one student wrote. "I'm sorry for everyone who died ..."

"I don't think I could go to war," another student wrote. "It's a life-changing thing."

The valentines, said Konawaena teacher Sandy Cameli, are part of an annual seventh-grade project at the Big Island school designed to teach children about the sacrifices made by the nation's military men and women, and about the responsibilities citizens have toward those they send into combat.

As the nation prepares its military forces for another armed conflict, this year's lesson seemed particularly timely, she said.

In social studies class and in smaller groups during advising periods, students are examining and discussing current events. The lessons aren't lost on them. One student wrote about the political situation between the United States, North Korea and Iraq.

"There is a huge risk if we go to war: Losing our soldiers or making more enemies. On the other hand, if we don't go to war, we might get bombed. This is a huge situation. What do you think we should do?"

The valentines, which are part of an annual nationwide program launched by Ann Landers several years ago, are included in the class activities of many Hawai'i schools and children's groups. They are sent to Veterans Administration facilities nationwide and are designed to bring smiles to the faces of the veterans who read them, Cameli said.

In that role, said Stephen Molnar, director of the Honolulu Vet Center, they were very effective.

"Everybody, from the biker vets to — well, everybody," he said. "They get that twinkle in their eyes, and you know it really meant something."

Molnar, who is a Vietnam vet and therapist, had the valentines photocopied and stapled into booklets to hand out to the veterans who walk into the Kapi'olani office. The validation they give are what many of them need most, he said.

"It's part of the human condition to need that," Molnar said. For those who survived combat, who live with memories of a place where people — enemies, friends, strangers — were killing and dying, the need for recognition and validation is even greater. The memories of war are imprinted in their minds like tattoos, he said, and they want to know what they did was OK.

War veteran David Espinda, at the Tripler Center for Aging, is thankful for the valentine he received signed "Love, Danson." Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

David Espinda has many memories. He is a veteran of two wars — Korea and Vietnam — who is staying at the Veterans Administration's Center for Aging, near Tripler Army Medical Center.

He said he appreciates the homemade valentines school children sometimes send to him.

He hung one, from a first-grader from Waipahu, on the wall of his room. Beneath it hangs a Christmas card that another child sent to him, beautifully drawn and inventively spelled.

"Some kid put a lot of effort into that," he said, "For me, someone he doesn't even know."

But Espinda said he thinks the children have it wrong when they speak of courage in the valentines. That wasn't the reason he and his fellow Marines went to war, he said.

"Nobody wants to go to war," he said. "Nobody wants to do what we did. And, hell, anyone who goes and isn't frightened is an idiot."

They went because they were Marines.

"You learn to follow orders," he said. "You do what you have to do."

And the young men and women who are Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen now, he said, will go where they are told to go, and do what they have to do.

Espinda hopes that they will be welcomed home.

Espinda came home from Vietnam in 1970. He remembers walking through the airport.

"People saw me coming, and they got out of the way," he said, showing with his hands how the crowd parted in front of him. "Like I had some germ or something. People look at you and see the fear in your eyes, and you know they are thinking you are some kind of nut ...

"You shouldn't have to be afraid to come home," he said.

Espinda can talk for hours about his resentment of the news media, and about the way the current situation is so often assessed by the impact a war might have on gas prices or tourist rates, instead of the impact it has on the number of lives.

He doesn't like to talk much about what happened to him and his companions during the wars, or the accident that took his leg when he got home and "was acting like a fool."

But he does like to talk about his goddaughter, a high school freshman and wrestler he hopes will see peace in her lifetime.

And he likes to talk about the cards and letters he and the other veterans get from the school children.

"I get a kick out of them," he said, pointing to those on his wall.