Semper Fidelis

I have been picking up Richard for years, as he hitch-hikes along HI 56. I am on his mailing list, and he sent this:

This past Monday, Memorial Day, I walked to the bus shelter in front of the Kapaa Neighborhood Center to hitch up north to Kilauea. It was after 6 PM, the sun setting fast in the west. An old man was seated at the bus shelter, apparently waiting for the bus. I recognized him as a man I rode with on the bus many months earlier. His name was Gordon, and he served in the US Marine Corps in World War Two.

As I approached the shelter, I asked Gordon if he was waiting for the bus north. He said he was. I broke the news to him the last bus had already left. Being a holiday, Memorial Day, the last northbound bus left Kapaa at 5:07 PM.

I said to him the only thing we can do is to hitch. I was going to Kilauea, and Gordon was going as far as Princeville. I started hitching, and he stood by my side. Us two guys, me 52 and he 80-something, waited one and a half hours for a ride. At least a couple of hundred cars must have passed us. Night fell, and the street lights came on. We were getting tired.

Finally, a pick up truck stopped and the younger man driving asked me where I was headed. By this time Gordon had sat down, and was just out of the light from the street light so the driver could see only me.

I told him I was headed to Kilauea, but that my friend over there was going all the way to Princeville, and there was no way I was going to leave him by himself waiting in the night here in Kapaa. I added that he is a veteran, and this is HIS day, Memorial Day.

The young man said he was not planning on going as far as Princeville, but for a veteran on Memorial Day, he would drive him anywhere he needed to go!

We strapped Gordon in the passenger seat, and I got situated in the back. The driver said he needed to make a brief stop to pick up some tools for his job tomorrow, and we would then continue on our way.

When we stopped in Anahola for the tools, we briefly talked story. I said that Gordon served our country during World War Two in the First Division of the US Marines in the Pacific. I added that my father also served in the US Marines in the Pacific during that war, but in the Third Division.

And the driver? Surprise, surprise, his father was a US Marine, and like my father, served in the Third Division, but in Vietnam many years later.

You see, US Marines have this tradition and duty of never leaving people behind the enemy lines, and apparently, lots of other places too.

We have a lot to be thankful for to all of our service men and women, including the US Marines. Service and duty and honor are not just things for war, but for life.

Those of us who hitch hike from time to time on Kauai have a saying that when you wait a long time for a ride, the one that comes eventually is a REALLY good one. This past Monday did not disappoint.

Richard