I was drafted into the Army in 1966, while attending college in Seattle. Uncle Sam came calling when I dropped below a full course load, and I "obediently responded". I underwent basic training at Fort Ord on the Monterey Peninsula of California. After completing our basic training we had our first weekend leave. Five of us boys from Hawaii took the two hour Grayhound bus ride straight to San Francisco to look for a chinese resturant with all the trimmings to fill our stomach with rice...the way we like it.

This was during the height of the Viet Nam war. My brother Harold was already serving in Viet Nam so I was sent to Korea instead, the land of kim-chee and bone-chilling winters. I was stationed near the DMZ at that time in the 7th Division, 73rd armored tank batallion. My job was to supply the battalion with ammunition and later ration breakdown which is food. In my spare time, I would go out to the village to eat the local food which offended my haole buddies for having kim chee breath, and worked out with a martial arts club practicing Tae Kwon Do.

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