Hometown Hero

Remembering Army Sgt. Henry Kahalewai Jr. of Hawaii and the Strykers:

Kahalewai, born and raised in Hilo, died Friday at a hospital in Texas after being hit two weeks earlier by a roadside bomb in Iraq while on patrol with his unit's Stryker vehicle.
America has lost another good man, said Joseph Aguiar, Kahalewai's cousin.

"This is our hero," he said yesterday. "I want the people of Hawaii to know what they lost."
Kahalewai, 44, had served two tours of duty during and after the Desert Storm campaign to liberate Kuwait in 1991, then two more tours during the current war in Iraq.
"He went back when the president called. He was not a scarecrow. He jumped right back into it," Aguiar said...

Kahalewai had been assigned to tank duty, but a little more than two weeks ago, he was patrolling with a Stryker. He was on the vehicle rather than inside, Aguiar said. That was how the blast hit him, taking one leg and spraying his body with shrapnel.
The Army brought his father, siblings, son and daughters to see him. The doctors could not stop an infection that the wounds caused.
Now Aguiar waits for word on when Kahalewai's father will bring him home.

Some gave all. Not a very Merry Christmas, but certainly a proud one.