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CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Allen Hoe honors his fallen son Nainoa by paying tribute to soldiers who die in battle every year. Hoe and his son are honored at the National Memorial Day Concert in Washington, D.C. Allen Hoe stands next to a portrait of his son.
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COURTESY OF NATIONAL MEMORIAL DAY CONCERT
Allen and Nainoa Hoe are shown together.
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COURTESY OF NATIONAL MEMORIAL DAY CONCERT
Nainoa Hoe poses in front of the Hawaiian flag during his basic training.
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For the past 19 years, former combat medic Allen Hoe has not left home without a plastic button with a photo of his son Nainoa and the words “My Hero” on his chest. Since Nainoa was killed in action in Iraq in 2005, Hoe’s commitment to honoring and remembering fallen soldiers has grown every year.
“I never fully understood or appreciated the meaning of Memorial Day, even though I had lost some very close friends and buddies in Vietnam,” said Hoe, who served during the Vietnam War. “What has become more important to me over the years is remembering these young soldiers, especially their families. It wasn’t until my son was killed that things became significantly harder and closer.”
This year, Allen and Nainoa Hoe will be honored on a much larger scale at the National Memorial Day Concert in Washington, DC. Held annually for the past 35 years, the 90-minute program features the stories of three pre-selected veterans or Gold Star families.
“We honor real heroes,” said Jill Jackson, executive producer at Capital Concerts, which puts on the National Memorial Day Concert every year. “We share stories of people who have served and sacrificed for us, and of people who are making a difference in our world and enabling us to live the lives we can, because of their efforts and because of what they bring to the nation datum. “
Jackson first met Allen Hoe through a mutual friend, Diane Carlson Evans, who founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation and asked Hoe to serve on its board of directors. At a Vietnam Women’s Memorial event last Veterans Day, Jackson spoke briefly with Hoe about his story before deciding to ask him to participate in this year’s National Memorial Day concert.
“I called him right after and said, ‘We’d like to share your story and Nainoa’s story in this year’s program. Is that OK?’” Jackson said. “He said, ‘Yes, you have permission to share my story. And Nainoa’s story belongs to everyone.'”
“I was completely overwhelmed, and it made me focus a little bit more on the importance of not forgetting these young individuals, the soldiers and service members who do so much for us,” Hoe said of the opportunity.
How said Nainoa was “very special”. Nainoa graduated from Kamehameha Schools and received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Hawaii, as well as his U.S. Army commission through UH’s ROTC program before enlisting.
“He was excited at the prospect of what it meant to be an officer leading forty young soldiers into battle,” Hoe said. ‘He grew up knowing my experiences. From time to time he met some of the guys I served with in combat, and that was important to him.”
He was a first lieutenant when he was killed by a sniper’s bullet during the 2005 battle for Mosul in Iraq.
A few months after Nainoa died, Hoe attended the Memorial Day program at the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in Washington, D.C., where two nurses returning from Iraq were to be honored. Hoe decided to take a slate with him to present to the nurses as a thank you for their participation in the program, and when he presented the slate to one of the nurses, he discovered that she had been Nainoa’s trauma nurse when he died.
“As she bent over so I could place the lei over her head, her hand reached out and grabbed my button. She said, ‘I know him.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, you know him?’ She said, ‘I was with him when he died,'” Hoe recalls. “You could have heard a pin drop. That was an incredible moment. What are the chances that all this would happen?”
In preparation for sharing the Hoe family’s story on the national stage, Jackson said she and her team began the process of “researching and reading everything they could.” A team of four also traveled to Hawaii for a week to conduct interviews with relatives and friends of Nainoa, including his younger brother Nakoa and his best friend Major Ray O’Donnell.
“Part of this is making sure that the voices of Gold Star families and veterans are heard, that their stories and words are heard and recognized,” Jackson said. “We really had an opportunity to make sure that we were honoring the story that we were sharing authentically.”
Jackson said that with so many stories to choose from to highlight, the concert’s production team tries to find stories that are specific to one person but will also resonate with many. The circumstances that shaped this story, Jackson said, made Hoe an obvious choice.
“(Hoe’s) story resonates with Vietnam veterans and all veterans who have lost friends, and for Gold Star families, he is able to give voice to pain, grief and experiences that only a Gold Star family can speak to ,” she said. “His story moves in so many different ways. We were like, ‘Wow, how can we not tell this story?'”
For Hoe, who has been actively involved in the veteran community since his sons donned the uniforms themselves, telling his family’s story and continuing to learn about his son has been extremely rewarding.
“For me, over the years, it has been fascinating to hear stories from other soldiers and other families who knew my son or served with someone who knew him, and it totally blows me away,” Hoe said. “Those are the best stories of the day. It’s amazing and maybe a little selfish on my part because I want to know more and more about who he was, what he did and how he got along with everyone. He was an incredible soldier. “
The 35th annual National Memorial Day concert airs today on PBS.
“If our story can impact one person, one family, to make their lives a little easier, it’s worth it,” Hoe said. “As a combat veteran, I tell that story to encourage other veterans to share their stories because it will help them. You need to share your story so that you help yourself understand it, and you help others understand it.”
