The ultimate sacrifice in service to country

During a recent vacation, we attended a polo match in Waimanalo on June 19, which was Father's Day. We were warmly received by an officer of the club, Allen Hoe.

Mr. Hoe asked about our stay, and I indicated that I was a United States Air Force officer. He thanked me for my service.

During the polo match, I noticed on a polo club newsletter that 1st Lt. Nainoa K. Hoe was killed in action in Iraq on Jan. 22, 2005, and realized that this was Mr. Hoe's son. Mr. Hoe just moments earlier had been thanking me for my service.

As part of my Air Force duties, I have the honor and privilege to participate in the process at Dover AFB that returns service members who have been killed in the line of duty to their families. I understand the ultimate sacrifice that 1st Lt. Hoe has made. My family honors his service and mourns his loss. The life of 1st Lt. Hoe honors his family, his native Hawai'i and all who wear the uniform of the United States of America.

Mr. Hoe, thank you for the service and sacrifice given by your family.

Freedom gives us everything we need

I am a child of war — World War II. Born into an aristocratic family in Europe, I lived the "charmed life" until age 9. Then the war robbed us not only of all our possessions and home, but also of our country. Suddenly we were "displaced persons," sort of like nomads.

Arriving in the U.S.A. some years later was a dream come true for me. My proudest moment was at age 25 when I became a citizen and was allowed to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Freedom was all around me, but I found that people took it for granted. I had to constantly remind them that freedom means we can worship at any church. We can read any book. We can speak openly on the streets and in restaurants without having to worry about getting arrested.

Freedom is shopping in shiny-clean supermarkets, with thousands of items to choose from.

Freedom allows us to sleep at night without worrying about bombs falling on our heads.

Freedom is getting an education, choosing one's friends, changing jobs, taking risks, going on vacations, taking responsibility for our actions, deciding how many children we want ... the list is endless.

Freedom allows us to have rights and to stand up for those rights. Above all, freedom is to be heard.

Responsibility is also an integral part

Freedom is the opposite side of a coin called Responsibility. Unless both sides appear on the coin, it is without value — value backed by the work of participation.

Growing up during World War II, I was a teenage American participating with the entire nation in facing and enduring the sacrifices of combat (my father and other men in the family served) as well as those on the home front: rationing (gas, sugar, housing construction, for example). We bought war stamps (children) and war bonds; we maintained "victory gardens" to grow our own vegetables, freeing the farmers to feed the armies; we volunteered to entertain the troops in our own homes and churches and civic centers.

We accepted responsibility. The president/commander-in-chief was behind all these efforts; he didn't say, "Go out and spend money," never mind on what frivolity.

Now we have a war on (on the cuff), and global corporations home-based in the United States ship capital, factories and jobs overseas. Apparently, corporate CEOs can spend the coin of "freedom" and bear no responsibility for what agonies their behavior brings to the people living in this country.

The grapes of wrath are growing.

Hawai'i: freedom from unlawful rule

In the words of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, and from the pen of Hawai'i's last ruling monarch, Queen Li-li'uokalani in 1893, while imprisoned in 'Iolani Palace by American soldiers and businessmen (taken from the book "Hawai'i's Story," Mutual Publishing, 1990), let us ponder America's freedom and independence, in contrast to Hawai'i's unsuccessful quest for a similar goal: freedom from unlawful rule.

Excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. ...

"But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Excerpts from "Hawai'i's Story" (pages 373-374):

"Oh, honest Americans, as Christians hear me for my down-trodden people! Their form of government is as dear to them as yours is precious to you. Quite as warmly as you love your country, so they love theirs. ... It is for them that I would give the last drop of my blood; it is for them that I would spend, nay, am spending, everything belonging to me. Will it be in vain? It is for the American people and their representatives in Congress to answer these questions. As they deal with me and my people, kindly, generously, and justly, so may the Great Ruler of all nations deal with the grand and glorious nation of the United Stated of America." — Queen Li-li'uokalani, 1893

Workers should be free to form a union

As we celebrate our nation's independence this week, we should keep in mind one freedom that tens of thousands of Americans are denied each year — the freedom to improve their lives through a union.

Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act — commonly known as the Wagner Act — which supposedly guarantees working people the chance to form unions freely.

Yet, abuse of workers' rights is so rampant in the U.S. that we've made it on the radar of Human Rights Watch, an internationally recognized organization that monitors basic human rights.

Unfortunately, employers routinely violate workers' freedom to choose a union, and the laws are too weak to stop them.

We need to urge lawmakers to support the Employee Free Choice Act. This bipartisan federal legislation would ensure that when a majority of employees in a workplace decides to form a union, they can do so without the grueling obstacles employers now use to block workers' free choice. We are appreciative that Hawai'i's entire congressional delegation has signed on as co-sponsors.

American opportunity birthed family business

My grandparents had the freedom to start their own company; also they built their own house.

Today they're busy with their work with the help of my aunty and uncle. They sell houses and places to rent for people.

Some of the houses are nice, small, old, or just entirely new houses. My grandpa gives me the key to the washing and dryer machine to collect the quarters inside the compartment. Then we sort the quarters by state coins and regular coins. The rest of the coins are taken to the bank for deposit.

Proud to be able to criticize without fear

Freedom means freedom of speech because we can talk about anything we want to without being yelled at or shot at, like in North Korea. We have the freedom of speech to talk about what one's own beliefs are about the war that's going on or what the current president is doing wrong and what's right.

For example, Eminem made a song called "Mosh." It talks about the war the president started and how many people have been killed in the war. He is expressing what he thinks about the war and the president.

I am glad that I am growing up in a country that has freedom everywhere and friendly people all over and no dictatorships. But we still have political problems in this country.

We can do much that we couldn't elsewhere

Freedom means you can do a lot of things and just have fun doing them. The first thing I think of is getting to go to school. In the olden days, in places like China, kids had to work in the fields when they were 8. I think we have more freedom because we get to stay in school to 17 and then work or go back to school for two to eight more years.

Owning property is freedom because you can do what you want to the house. You can build a bigger home if you want. In other countries, people can't even own their house. They can't build on the property, and they live together in large numbers.

Threat to freedom also comes from within

Today we should all, as good patriotic Americans, take a few minutes away from our busy day to honor the words penned by Thomas Jefferson in the 1776 Declaration of Independence. Equality, liberty, unalienable rights — concepts that are important enough to be protected by all Americans at all costs.

Unfortunately, from almost the very beginning of our nation's history, these ideals have been put in jeopardy, not just by foreign threats (as in World War II), but also by our own government. In 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, giving President Adams the authority to banish or imprison any foreigner he thought dangerous. In 1942, President Roosevelt interned thousands of Japanese American citizens who were deemed to be threats to American security. Now we have a government that, under the provisions of the Patriot Act, has the power to monitor the reading habits of its citizens.

Freedom — a concept to celebrate today. Freedom — a concept that needs to be protected from foreign and domestic threats every day of our lives.

A united America could save soldiers

Freedom means we are as strong as we are united and as weak as we are divided.

If all Americans were united, we might help our soldiers in Iraq instead of just sending supplies. We have to believe we could help our men get out of the world of war and into a world of peace and happiness.

President Bush may be strong, but we are stronger united than we are divided. We can't stop Bush, but we can help our men. So let's stand united and bring our troops home.

Our freedom is a precious right

Freedom means choice and consequence, free thinking, having a life better than others in Third World countries and being thankful that I live here. Even with all the problems we endure, it's so much better than most.

Freedom to me is being thankful to our forefathers and to the brave military who have lost their precious lives and to those who have returned. Thank you for your sacrifice and bravery.

My freedom is how I choose to worship my Lord. Freedom is how we live and whom we love outside of our race.

Freedom is a precious right. But, with everything, it comes with a price. Let's not waste it.

Freedom to choose

For me, living fully in freedom means being able to marry the man I love and to have legal protection from discrimination based on the sexual orientation I was born with. It is about equality and justice.

The price of freedom must be paid

President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on Nov. 19, 1863, "to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live." Associated Press library photo

Years passed by. One day, my husband took me to Washington, D.C., to visit the Lincoln Memorial. As I stepped into the monument, Lincoln's eyes gazed at me from a few feet below the ceiling. His statue was huge and majestic.

And there it was, on the wall right behind the statue. The Gettysburg Address.

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal ... "

Tears started rolling down my cheeks.

In 1975, my people tried to come to the U.S. in a giant exodus that left many stranded on islands, buried in the seas, raped by pirates, with terror and grief in their hearts and yet with joy and hope for the future.

I remember my first night sleeping here in America. There was no sound of gunfire, no light in the sky from rockets that communist soldiers fired into the city. There was peace.

A friend asked me what I would do if some day there were a war between my native country and my adopted one. I did not know the answer back then when I first came. I know now.

Freedom comes with a price. And the price must be paid so that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."