KAILUA-KONA — President John F. Kennedy in 1961 implored a nation’s citizenry to consider what they could do for their country, not what their country could do for them.
Four years earlier, after Edwin Fujimoto graduated from Konawaena High School, he’d considered that same question more collectively.
“My family, we grew up poor, so they couldn’t send me to school, and I wasn’t smart enough to go to school anyway,” he said. “So I figured I would join the service and see what they could do for me.”
“You get a free education,” Edwin continued. “But you have to suffer a little bit.”
Edwin’s wife, Marge, who followed a year behind him at Konawaena, explained life was beautiful but difficult for locals in West Hawaii back in those days.
“For us who came from very humble beginnings, we knew (enlisting) was the best education any person can get,” she said. “We grew up and we picked coffee. We struggled through life.”
So it came back not to just that one question for Edwin, but two.
First, what could he do for his country?
He could join the Air Force Academy, serve as a supply officer in two wars over a 20-year career and inspire three of his five children to follow in his footsteps — two generations of Fujimotos dedicating 84 years of service to America’s armed forces, with more to come in generation three.
And second, what could Edwin’s country do for him?
It could provide him an education, a stable income for his family, afford an opportunity at college and careers for three of his children, all of whom would meet their spouses and build their own families through their service.
Over more than 60 years, the exchange between the Fujimotos and the Air Force has proven fortuitous on both sides.
It has also been a source of deep pride for the Fujimoto family, particularly for its matriarch. Marge lost her father to an illness he contracted while a prisoner of war (POW) in the Philippines during World War II when she was only 5 years old. And she spent much of her adult life praying for not only a husband, but also for two sons, who were deployed in combat zones spanning several conflicts and outright wars across five decades.
“It was a little stressful and I just worried,” Marge said. “But I did a lot of praying, so I depended on my faith a lot.”
“I loved being a military wife,” she continued. “I was very proud of it. We were serving our country.”
Generations of service
The Fujimotos returned to South Kona in 1977 after 20 years traveling the globe. Today, they make their home in Kealakekua.
Walking into the living room, there can be no mistake — this is a military family. Dozens of framed photographs of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren cover the walls, intermingling with military portraits and awards, plaques commemorating service, American flags and Air Force sabres.
Edwin and Marge’s oldest child, Cynthia; their oldest son, Bryan; and his younger brother, Greg, all joined the Air Force and each served at least 20 years. Cynthia and Bryan did so by way of the Academy. Greg went the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) route.
All three retired as lieutenant colonels.
“For our children to be interested in the military and attending the Academy, for my husband it was, ‘Wow,’” Marge remembered. “His kids wanted to follow in his footsteps. He was bursting.”
“I’m very proud of them,” Edwin added.
It began with Cynthia, now 57 and living in Virginia, who recalls her father coming home one day when she was in high school, also at Konawaena, and showing her a copy of the Air Force Times. The article highlighted the first to-be graduating class of women from the Academy.
They were two years older than Cynthia.
“I looked at it, read the article and I said, ‘Well, I can do that,” she remembered. “He said, ‘Well, why don’t you?’ So I did.”
A computer systems officer, Cynthia served for 20 years. Her service provided her with a sense of purpose, not to mention a job she loved getting up for each day, which she said she’s found to be a rare gift.
That sense of purpose has persisted even 15 years after her retirement, as Cynthia continues to help young people apply to the Air Force Academy today.
Her son will also be a senior at Virginia Military Institute next year. He plans on commissioning into the Army next May.
“The kids who really want to serve our country, they seem to be different,” Cynthia said. “Special somehow.”
Fly boys
The Fujimoto brothers interpreted the name of their chosen military institution more literally than their father and sister before them, and both took quickly to the sky.
The most trying time for Bryan, now 53 and based in Virginia, during his two decades of service, was four months in Desert Storm doing tactical reconnaissance work as a weapons system officer.
Diving down through the clouds and occasionally into range of enemy anti-aircraft weapons became less jarring with time, he explained, but was never something to which he become totally accustomed.
“It looks almost like flash cubes going off and you think, ‘Holy smokes, that’s people shooting at me,” Bryan said. “That was probably the most harrowing time because you weren’t sure. ‘Am I gonna get shot down?’”
For Bryan, what his service afforded him came down to the concept of proportions — a calling to something greater than himself that also shrunk the world and made it more accessible for his family.
“There’s times when it’s rough. There’s times when you’re separated a lot. But the opportunities to go and do all these things … the world is a much smaller place for us because we’ve been everywhere,” Bryan said. “I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
Greg, now 51 and living in Colorado, saw more combat than any member of the Fujimoto family as a career Air Force pilot. He flew missions in Kosovo in the Balkans and was also deployed nine times to the Philippines, Iraq and Afghanistan, logging 1,100 combat hours over his career.
His first live mission targeted a border post in Kosovo. The aircraft was fired on, took evasive action to decoy a heat-seeking missile and then rolled back onto target and took out the post despite a gun malfunction.
“The first time you’re going into combat, you can remember every detail of the flight. … You can still smell the powder going off in the airplane. You can still hear the guns clinking in the back,” Greg said. “You can still talk to all those crew members on that mission that night and they remember all the same things you remember.”
But perhaps the most important thing Greg’s time in the Air Force built for him was a different sort of camaraderie.
He met his wife in ROTC and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where they dated before graduating and going their separate ways. Each got married and had children, subsequently getting divorced.
It was the military carousel and Greg’s older brother, Bryan, who brought them back together again.
Bryan was working in Texas when Greg’s now-wife, Lisa, received her first assignment, which happened to place her in Bryan’s squadron. They knew each other, had mutual friends and when Bryan found out she was single, he gave his brother a call.
“That’s how I got in contact with her,” Greg remembered. “That’s how we got linked up again and rekindled the fire. And we’ve been married ever since.”
Full circle
While Cynthia already has a son pursuing a military career, Greg said one of his sons is showing a lot of interest in hopping into a pilot’s seat.
As Bryan explained it, military life has been good to his family, and it’s all he’d ever known. It wasn’t a big leap for him to join the Air Force, following in his father’s and sister’s footsteps. And he wouldn’t be surprised to see either of his sons chose to do the same.
But as it has always been in the Fujimoto family, a military career will be a choice each member of the next generation will make on their own.
“We’re going to encourage them to do whatever they want to do,” Bryan said, “and make sure when they go into making these life decisions, they’re doing it with eyes wide open.”
Despite her apprehension during their deployments, Marge said she never wished her husband any of her children who chose the military would have pursued a different career — especially considering all they’ve given, and all they’ve gotten in return.
Today, West Hawaii will celebrate its veteran community at the West Hawaii Veterans Cemetery. Edwin and Marge try to attend as frequently as they can to honor the sacrifices and celebrate the gifts of all those who asked that question President Kennedy posed 57 years ago.
What can you do for your country?
And all who answered: Serve.
“It is a day really to recognize those who gave their lives going all the way back to when our country first began,” Marge said. “It’s an awesome, humbling feeling to know all these people who gave their lives so we would be safe here in the United States.”