KAILUA-KONA — The names of the Big Island service members carved into the black stone of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall now have photos, after local volunteers sifted through decades of history to match and memorialize some of Hawaii’s fallen.
KAILUA-KONA — The names of the Big Island service members carved into the black stone of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall now have photos, after local volunteers sifted through decades of history to match and memorialize some of Hawaii’s fallen.
The effort was aided by a remarkable stroke of luck, but completed nonetheless.
“I just have had a huge smile on my face because we’re done with the Big Island,” said Janna Hoehn, whose call to the community for help matching pictures of the veterans she was trying to memorialize was answered.
She’s searching for a photo of every American killed in Vietnam and was down to two who were from the Big Island, Staff Sgt. Steve Freddie Johnson and Spc. Karou Honda.
But after community response, the photos are now on the Wall of Faces created by the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Fund. It connects each name on the memorial with a photo.
Here’s how it came to be:
Hoehn asked West Hawaii Today to write a story about her mission. She was looking for photos of Johnson, who was listed as a Kailua-Kona resident.
The story ran on Jan. 5 and Don Jackson read it, as he recovered from full-knee replacement surgery, and it reminded him of his friend.
Remarkably, Jackson and Johnson grew up together in California before Johnson moved to Kailua-Kona right after high school. It would be decades later when Jackson moved to Kailua-Kona, where he happened to be reading the article over breakfast.
“Hey, this is Steve they’re trying to find,” he thought and emailed Hoehn, telling her about Johnson’s childhood, including where the young man went to high school in Southern California.
That tip gave Hoehn enough to start digging for her own photo. She found a digital version of the yearbook photo and sent it to Jackson.
Being certain was hard, as time had altered Jackson’s memory. The nose and eyes are similar, he said, but the hair was darker and the person was bulkier than he recalled.
“Your memory fades in that short time from 16 to 68,” he told West Hawaii Today.
To be absolutely certain, they tried to reach out to Huntington High School for confirmation. The school, where Johnson graduated, would not confirm his attendance for Hoehn or West Hawaii Today, citing privacy reasons.
That leaves a shadow of doubt for both Jackson and Hoehn, which neither is comfortable with.
But Hoehn decided to advance, and Johnson’s picture joined Honda’s on the Virtual Wall.
Jackson is almost certain it is the right photo.
“I didn’t want to be any more certain than that, because this is going to be on the memorial,” he said, adding it would be a disservice both to his friend and whoever is the person if he was wrong.
The boys met in a Cub Scout troop in Sierra Madre, California. Dorothy Johnson was the den mother, and the 7-year-old Don and 8-year-old Steve became good friends.
Even when the Johnson family moved to Seal Beach, they kept in contact. Jackson remembers spending at least a month every summer with them.
After Johnson graduated, his family moved to Kailua-Kona, where Steve’s father worked as a contractor, building houses.
Steve and Don continued to exchange letters, although Jackson was surprised to read in a letter from Fort Riley, Kansas, that his friend was in the Army, training to be a medic.
Jackson learned about his friend’s death in 1971, several months after Johnson was killed on Dec. 14, 1970. A family friend worked to locate him and mailed an article describing the incident.
Jackson said Johnson was leaving Vietnam for leave with his parents. Johnson and five other men were riding in the helicopter when it was shot down, he said, despite it being painted with a red cross.
A couple of years before coming to West Hawaii Today for help in her Johnson search, Hoehn got word out she was looking for a perished Hilo soldier.
Art Taniguchi heard about Hoehn’s pursuit of a photo of Karou Honda and managed to secure a photo, although his efforts didn’t have the remarkable coincidence that Johnson’s did.
“It’s easy stuff. Hilo’s a small place,” Taniguchi said.
But now, Hoehn can close her Big Island chapter.
There remain two men from Oahu to identify, and then the rest of the nation. Hoehn and other volunteers have finished seven states so far, and they are against a time limit.
“Very few of the parents are still alive,” Hoehn said, and it can be hard to track siblings.
Shuffling the 58,000 Americans off into a world of forgetfulness is what Hoehn and others struggle against.
“It doesn’t matter what people think about Vietnam,” Jackson said, tears coming to his eyes. “The main thing remember to support those guys that did.”
