"Everything's taken away — and not being able to see him continue with his life and see him have a family of his own and just hear his voice ... ," Ellis-Williams said, her voice breaking.

Magaoay, a 2002 Pearl City High graduate, was the first Hawai'i-born Marine to die in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

It has been a year of awful firsts as thousands of Marines and soldiers from Hawai'i or based in Hawai'i fought in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Dozens died.

At least 85 service members with Hawai'i ties have been killed in the line of duty since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, including 27 Marines from Kane'ohe Bay and a sailor who died in the Jan. 26 crash of a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter in western Iraq.

Gina Ellis-Williams displays a pendant etched with a picture of her son, Lance Cpl. Blake Magaoay, who was killed in Fallujah, Iraq. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

For three local families who experienced those losses, their lives and Memorial Day will never be the same.

Allen Hoe, who lost his son 1st Lt. Nainoa K. Hoe to a sniper's bullet on Jan. 22 in Mosul, Iraq, said what other Hawai'i families say: The pain does not go away.

"We get by," said the elder Hoe, a Vietnam veteran from Kailua. "Contrary to popular belief, it does not get better or easier."

A-Young Kim, 24, will be spending Memorial Day at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific with her husband, Pvt. Jeungjin "Nikky" Kim, who is buried beneath a pink-flowering plumeria tree in Punchbowl.

Nikky Kim was killed Oct. 6 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, in an attack that included a roadside bomb and small-arms fire.

A-Young Kim used to view Memorial Day as a three-day weekend when "I was just happy to get the day off work." But now the 1999 Hawaiian Mission Academy graduate, who lives near Kahala Mall, finds it "completely different ... more important to me than Christmas."

Gina Ellis-Williams

Six months after her firstborn son was killed in what has become known as the Battle of Fallujah, Ellis-Williams, 39, hangs on for her 6-year-old son, Octavio, and 10-year-old stepson, Keali'i.

Blake Magaoay joined the Marine Corps on Aug. 28, 2002, out of high school, and was on his second tour of Iraq. The Marine based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., made it through the worst of the fighting in Fallujah that began on Nov. 8. Twice he received minor wounds.

More than 71 U.S. troops and 1,200 insurgents were killed fighting over the city. Magaoay, who had a fiery spirit and was quick to joke, was killed as so many other Marines had been — in an ambush while searching a home.

Ellis-Williams, who lives in 'Ewa, still breaks down several days a week "as if it just happened." She still feels a profound emptiness and sadness. She doesn't socialize much anymore.

She said her 6-year-old, who called Blake "Bubu," still asks, because he doesn't quite understand, "Why can't Bubu come home? Why can't Bubu come home to us?"

At first, passers-by in the grocery store would tell her, "Oh, I'm sorry to hear about your son." But later on, "you're just another person," Ellis-Williams said.

She wears a charm around her neck with a picture of Blake, and sometimes people will ask about the young man pictured, and she'll tell them he is her son and a Marine who was killed in Iraq.

"I don't want anyone to ever forget these boys who died for our country for all of us," she said, her voice breaking into sobs.

Ellis-Williams has met some of the Hawai'i Marines returning from war and her son's friends from California who fought with him, and they are among the walking wounded who need to be acknowledged as well, she said.

"They will never, ever, have a normal life because of what they've seen and experienced," she said. "A lot of them are depressed. A lot wake up with bad dreams constantly, and they are dealing with counseling and medication and turning into alcoholics, because they just want to drown the sorrow."

At a Kane'ohe Bay memorial service for fallen Marines, she tried to shake the hands and hug as many Marines as she could.

"But ... there are so, so many, that it would just take me forever (to thank them all)," she said. "I wish I could just scream out to the men and women how much I love them and appreciate everything they've done."

This Memorial Day weekend, Ellis-Williams is staying at the Hilton Waikoloa Resort on the Big Island, a favorite of Blake's that she wants to share with her youngest son.

"I think I'm actually going to places for closure, places that Blake enjoyed," she said.

In June she's going to Camp Pendleton to visit with some of his Marine buddies.

"I'm getting stronger," she said.

Although she still has regular breakdowns over her son's death, she said, they are not quite as frequent as before.

Allen Hoe

A lawyer, former judge and a combat medic in Vietnam in 1967-68, Hoe said the passage of about four months since his son's death has brought reflection and, with it, a whole new level of sadness.

The gravity of the loss "is kind of magnified every day in terms of the things that you would be doing now, that you are not doing, and the realization that you won't ever get to do them again."

More than 650 mourners crowded into Kawaiaha'o Church in February to pay respects to 1st Lt. Nainoa K. Hoe. The popular platoon leader, killed on Jan. 22 in Mosul while leading a foot patrol, was a modern-day soldier, but he also considered himself a Hawaiian warrior.

The 27-year-old had been U.S. Army Pacific reserve soldier of the year with the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry, and a UH ROTC standout.

For Nainoa's mom, Adele, and wife, Emily, who lives in Oregon, the loss has been very hard, Allen Hoe said.

Everyone in the community has been "very loving and very supportive," he said. "But at the end of the day, it's the realization that all your dreams and plans are just, poof, gone."

Nainoa's younger brother, Nakoa, 20, is a specialist with the Reserve's 100th Battalion and was scheduled to go to Iraq, but at his mother's insistence, has stayed back, and now works with the battalion's rear detachment.

According to his father, Nakoa lets his parents know what's happening with buddies who are part of the 100th in Iraq and "he says, 'Ya know, Mom, I really need to be there.' And she smiles at him and says, 'I understand that, Nakoa, but right now you really need to be here.' "

Allen Hoe, 58, lost comrades in Vietnam and has lost his son — and the losses have become intertwined.

Nainoa Hoe carried a fringed American "battle flag" that was with his father's unit.

On May 12, 1968, 22 fellow soldiers were killed in Vietnam, and Allen Hoe recently learned that the son of a forward air controller who provided air cover that day was Nainoa's battalion commander.

Tomorrow, Allen Hoe will be among the speakers at the Memorial Day observance at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.

Hoe said that when Nainoa was killed, it seemed to put a face on war and service for some people in Hawai'i.

Hawai'i's aloha spirit has been shown one-on-one in individual demonstrations of recognition for the sacrifices of service members, "but what is really missing is the business industry in Hawai'i."

"For me, that seems to be the disconnect," Hoe said. "Welcome (service members) into the community. Give them huge discounts."

He also believes that service members who have been killed in action, and who are buried at Hawai'i State Veterans Cemetery in Kane'ohe — including Nainoa Hoe, Pfc. Joshua Kuile Paul Titcomb and Spc. Kyle Ka'eo Fernandez — should be in a special section for those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

A-Young Kim

Apollo Ikaika Kim was born on Sept. 7. His father, Pvt. Jeungjin "Nikky" Kim, never got to hold him.

Nikky Kim, 23, had been in Iraq since early that same month with 2nd Infantry Division out of Camp Hovey, South Korea.

He was born in South Korea, came to Hawai'i in 1997 or 1998 on a student visa, and married A-Young in 2001.

He was killed in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, about a month after he arrived, on Oct. 6, 2004.

A-Young Kim had been in the Army, too, but recently received a hardship separation partly because her son has lung problems and needs nebulizer treatments every six hours.

She tries to put her husband's death out of her mind.

"I don't want to think about it. Only because since my son's been sicker, I've been thinking, gosh, I wish my husband was here," A-Young said. "He always was just the steady one."

Her husband's parents in South Korea "are beyond devastated," she said.

She went to Colorado, where Nikky's unit will return after Iraq, for a memorial service. That's where she learned of the injuries of others lucky enough to survive and where she grew aware of the bonds among soldiers.

"All the soldiers that were in the war that were in Colorado, the only reason they were there is because they got hurt," she said.

One of Nikky's buddies had been hit in the face with shrapnel. Another soldier was wounded when a bullet entered his nostril and exploded out of his cheek.

"This guy has no teeth, but all of them got up to go to the memorial, and they were looking at me crying and telling me they are sorry," A-Young said.

She still loves the Army, and its values, and wants to go through ROTC to become a commissioned officer. She has received some death benefits, but is still working through the process.

A-Young plans on spending Memorial Day at Nikky's grave.

"When I'm up there, it's going to be a little different from the majority of my visits," she said. "I want to let him know, just like I always did when he was alive, that I don't regret any of the decisions he made, ever."