By Dianne M. Strong, Ed.D.
Special to the Variety

WITH the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq comes both international war protests and poignant remembrances of military heroism.
This past weekend in Washington, D.C., Vietnam War veterans, calling themselves a “Gathering of Eagles,” guarded the Vietnam veterans’ “Wall.” Their goal was to prevent possible defacing of the sacred memorial by anti-Iraq war protestors led by Cindy Sheehan and Jane Fonda, who had once been called “Hanoi Jane.”
Here on Guam, 14 veterans of the Battle for Iwo Jima had barbecued at Johnny Gerber’s Pacific War Museum last Thursday, a day after a day-long tour of the island for which they had fought 62 years ago. Guam’s Third Marine Division Association, headquartered at the museum, hosted the annual event.
Accompanying the Marines as part of the annual Military Historical Tours anniversary was former Army Spc. Hilario Bermanis Jr., 25, of Madolenimw, Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia.
Arguably the most celebrated Micronesian to suffer injuries in Iraq, Bermanis “has come to symbolize the commitment of those hundreds of Micronesian islanders in uniform — as well as that of their governments — to what the U.S. government and many in Micronesia would call the global war against terrorism,” according to a news release from the Office of Public Affairs of the FSM.
Bermanis, who lost both legs and an arm in a grenade attack in June 2003, made national news in the U.S. when he was presented with the Bronze Star by an army general, was granted full U.S. citizenship, and was visited during his convalescence at Walter Reed Medical Center by President Bush and his wife. Bermanis, who was serving in the 82nd Airborne Division when he was injured, became an instant celebrity.
At the same time, the modest and shy islander from Pohnpei, who has refused media interviews with CNN, The Washington Post, as well as all Guam media, has unwittingly become a “talking point” poster boy. He is a reminder of the controversial issue of Pacific islanders, most of whom are not U.S. citizens, serving in the military and dying for a country which they have adopted only under oath.
Poverty and patriotism fuel enlistments
The economic realities of Pacific islanders are well known. Living in the Northern Marianas or the islands of the FSM and providing for a family’s well being is difficult. The lure of the military is irresistible to many unemployed young men and women.
According to The New York Times (July 2005), the Army minimum signing bonus is $5,000. Starting pay for a private first class is $17,472. Education benefits can be as much as $70,000. In contrast, the minimum wage in Chuuk is 85 cents an hour, and $1.35 for the federal government of the FSM, according to Staff Sgt. Nelson Jack, U.S. Army recruiter at Guam’s U.S. Army Recruiting Station Guam.
In July 2005, James Brooke of The New York Times wrote: “On farthest U.S. shores, Iraq is a way to a dream.” He reported that “Saipan, with a population of about 60,000 American citizens and green card holders, has 245 soldiers in Iraq.”
“You can’t beat recruiting here in the Marianas, in Micronesia,” said First Sgt. Olympio Magofna, who grew up on Saipan and oversees Pacific recruiting for the Army from his base on Guam. “In the states, they are really hurting,” he said. “But over here, I can afford to play golf every other day.” (The New York Times, July 31, 2005)
“They have a sense of patriotism that most people just don’t understand,” is the way Retired Army Major Edward Camacho explains it. How else can you account for the fact that the Northern Marianas now has about 250 men and women serving in Iraq? (The New York Times, July 31, 2005).
New York Times reporter Brooke added that on Guam, “where ‘America starts its day’, the Army recruiting station has four of the Army’s top 12 ‘producers.’ While small in real terms, enlistments from Guam, Saipan, and American Samoa are the nation’s highest per capita.”
On Guam, Staff Sgt. Jack, a native of Mokil in Pohnpei State, reported that since March 2005, 56 FSM citizens enlisted in the Army just on Guam — 46 males, and six females.
The number of Micronesians in the armed forces currently exceeds 1,000, according to Willy Kostka, director of the Conservation Society of Pohnpei, the home island of Bermanis.
Cultural disconnect
Yet Pohnpeian Kostka questions the cultural disconnect of Micronesians bearing arms in war. As with many stateside Americans who can vote for president, some Pacific islanders are beginning to question the “ethical dilemma of participating in what many regard as an unjust war.”
“The Federated States of Micronesia,” Kostka wrote for the Micronesian Seminar, “is a sovereign country and we are not at war with anyone. We are no longer a territory of the U.S. and definitely not a branch of the Government of the United States of America.”
The point that Kostka did not make was forcefully made by Army Recruiter Staff Sergeant Nelson Jack, also a citizen of Pohnpei. Jack asked what he calls “the ultimate question.”
“Where are you (Kostka and others) getting your paychecks from? Do you know from where our government is getting its budget? From FSM Compact funding! Who are you to criticize the Mother Protector of Democracy–Life, Liberty and Justice for all? We, the men and women of the world’s strongest Army, don’t do anything without justification for creating “peace and justice for all.”
“We, the soldiers from the FSM,” Recruiter Jack continued, “are our ambassadors to the United States, so our people in the FSM can get some help from the federal government.”
Jack made a passionate plea for the island leaders in the FSM to stop the corruption and the politics, and grow their economies. He pleads for economic development in fisheries and tourism, so that the FSM can have good schools and hospitals. And then, maybe then, the FSM sons and daughters — like Bermanis — won’t have to go off to war.
Cultural mores may differ in other U.S. territories, however. Delegate Eni Faleomavaega, who represents American Samoa in the U.S. Congress, told USA Today in May 2005 that “this is one of the misconceptions that people have about Polynesians being laid back, easygoing, or that they like to play their ukuleles under the palm trees,” he said. “The fact is, the Polynesians are warriors.”
Sacrifice
Lured by rosy pictures of benefits, fat salaries and educational incentives, not all Pacific islanders give serious consideration to the tragic sacrifice that may result from going to war.
The “outsized sacrifice” made by Pacific islanders was first heralded by Gregg Zoroya in USA Today in May 2005.
Zoroya reported in “From tiny Pacific islands comes outsized sacrifice” that “while the average death rate in Iraq for individual states in the U.S. is five per million, the figure for Micronesia is 25 per million, or five times the U.S. rate.”
One of those statistics was a Yapese who had served 16 years in the Army and was planning to return to Yap upon his retirement. Army Staff Sgt. Steven G. Bayow, 42, of Colonia, Yap, died on Feb. 4, 2005 in Bayji, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device hit his vehicle. He was assigned to the 2d Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Georgia.
Zoroya further quoted Tanya Harris, an FSM diplomat. “People don’t realize that there is a population out there that has this strong bond to the U.S.” The nation, a collection of more than 600 islands with about 108,000 people, has lost two soldiers in Iraq since September 2005.