Posted on: Friday, May 2, 2003

Rallying support for GI's mom

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Sometimes, the idea of "showing support" is pretty nebulous. When there's really nothing concrete you can do to help, how do you put into words or symbols the concern you feel for someone's troubles?

For Emmy Pangorang, a bunch of yellow ribbons were just what she needed to get through a rough time.

Pangorang is a surgical technologist at the Kaiser Moanalua ambulatory surgery center. Her job requires her to be focused and "on" all the time. But on the day the war began in Iraq, all she could think about was her 21-year-old son, Channon, an Army sergeant deployed to the battlefield.

"My heart never felt heavier," Pangorang said. "Each hour on that day, as the clock got closer and closer to the 3 o'clock deadline, I felt the uneasiness in my heart as I never felt before."

Though she tried to put on a brave face at work, Pangorang knew there was one person who would see right through her.

"I tried to avoid Aunty that day because I know she gets very concerned."

"Aunty" is Carole Yamamoto, ward clerk at Kaiser Moanalua. Everyone calls her Aunty, though Pangorang says, "She's more like a mother to all of us."

It didn't take Aunty Carole long to figure out something was up with Emmy. "She found out that my son was in Iraq. After I came out of surgery, she showed me all the yellow ribbons and she gave me the biggest one, and said, 'Emmy, this is for your son. We're supporting him and the rest of the troops so that they'll come home safely.' "

Aunty Carole encouraged Pangorang to bring in pictures of her son to display throughout the ward. She brought yellow roses from her house and put up flags around the surgical center. When Emmy came back to work this week after a couple of days off, she says, "I looked and now there's an even bigger flag on the ward!"

"If it were my boy," says Aunty, "I don't know what I'd do. I'd be beside myself. And she still came to work every day, and CNN is on in the background here every day and the poor thing, bless her heart, having to put up with all that."

The staff wrote letters to Channon and even some of the patients got into the group effort.

"I sent him all the signatures that I got from everyone," says Pangorang. "They wrote, 'Come home!' and they wrote 'Kick some blank-blank!' and 'I want my fish and poi!' I think he liked that."

After excruciating weeks of waiting, Emmy finally got a phone call from her son. He's able to call more regularly now, and he assures his family that he'll be coming home soon.

"Each time I see on TV the military coming home and I see all these families hugging, I feel good because I know soon that will be us," she says.

Until then, Aunty and the rest of her support system at work are hanging tough. Says Aunty, "We're still wearing our yellow ribbons because he's not back yet."