James Yee, Antonio Taguba, Eric Shinseki and Gordon Chung-Hoon. They symbolize four different Asian Pacific American military heroes who have risked careers and lives. The late Rear Adm. Gordon Chung-Hoon was honored at Pearl Harbor last weekend with a new naval destroyer bearing his name. As a lieutenant, he fought off Japanese kamikaze attacks, while preventing the sinking of his destroyer in World War II. At the time, then-commander Chung-Hoon was serving in an era that saw the 1943 repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Compare Chung-Hoon to Yee, Taguba and Shinseki.
Chaplain James Yee only recently won an honorable discharge that basically exonerated him of 76 days in jail for suspicions of espionage, mishandling classified documents and now dropped adultery and pornography charges. Still, Yee — an Army Captain — is tenaciously fighting to clear his name.
Months after Yee’s release from jail, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba issued the devastating report about the abusive treatment against Iraqi detainees inside the crowded Abu Ghraib prison.
However, the irony is that as Taguba reported about injustices against Iraqi prisoners, he also highlighted another injustice recently: Filipino American World War II veterans continue to die monthly without receiving equal benefits from the government they faithfully defended.
Taguba’s report on Abu Ghraib was a symptom of the unheeded honesty of another APA: Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Shinseki had warned Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops were needed for the invasion and post-war peacekeeping – including supervision of Iraqi POWs. Shinseki eventually retired after losing a bureaucratic battle with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Shinseki’s warnings will haunt us. However, this country’s military have produced a man of his honesty, Taguba’s integrity, Chung-Hoon’s heroism and Yee’s tenacity — all values that we salute in the men and women of our Armed Forces.