Korean War Memoir
From Paradiseto Hell
Tales Of A Group Of Boys Who Became Men And One A Giant Under Fire
William (Bill) Castro
They left as boys.
They came back different.
The summer the coffins started coming home, roughly thirty young men from every point of the Islands enlisted together. Not at a meeting, not after a vote — separately, in their own houses, on their own islands, arriving at the same conclusion at the same time.
Chapter One — Sons of the Islands
- 1950
- The year they left
- 18
- Bill's age
- 17
- Leroy's age
- 13 months
- Until rotation home
There was Hawaii.
Waikiki on payday.
Hotel Street after.
Saimin and beer when the money ran out.
Kalua pig and lomi salmon on Bill’s father’s table. Kool-Aid at Leroy’s mother’s, held politely and drunk with great sincerity. A borrowed 1949 Cadillac, and a weekend that never lasted.
Leroy Saint John Kauhini
He walked into a barracks full of strangers and got every name right the first time, so nobody would be left standing alone in a corner.
Before Korea,
there was Hawaii.
Then everything
changed.
Island boys who had never seen snow landed in it. Within a month of leaving Waikiki they were riding north out of Pusan with one clip of eight rounds apiece — and orders not to load them.
Hotel Street · Christmas Eve, 1950
He was seventeen when he signed.
Too young to sign his own way into a war, so his mother signed for him. He carried the Browning Automatic Rifle for five months and refused to hand it off, saying the replacements were too small for it — never mentioning that he stood five foot five himself.
“Take care of Abel and you too, brother. Aloha, my brother.”
From Paradise to Hell
Tales Of A Group Of Boys Who Became Men And One A Giant Under Fire
Written by the man who came home, about the ones who didn’t — and who has spent the decades since making sure they are still spoken of by name.
Some stories are written to be read.
Some are written so they are not forgotten.
William (Bill) Castro