StoryCorps: Hawaiʻi's Military Voices
In June 2022, HPR teamed up with StoryCorps to gather audio conversations from Hawai‘i residents about their military experiences.
Whether it's stories of service... stories of being marginalized... or stories that fall somewhere in between... these stories are as nuanced and diverse as our island communities.
The Military Voices Initiative provides a platform for veterans, service members, and military families to share their stories. In doing so we honor their voices, amplify their experiences, and let them know that we — as a nation — are listening.
A selection of locally produced StoryCorps segments aired Oct. and Nov. 2023 during Morning Edition (weekdays 5 a.m. to 9 a.m.) and All Things Considered (weekdays 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.). A one-hour special featuring Hawaiʻi's Military Voices aired on Nov. 25 on HPR-1.
StoryCorps’ mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world. As part of the Military Voices Initiative, all recordings have been archived at the Library of Congress.
These interviews were recorded by StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world, and facilitated by Hazel Diaz, Isabella Gonzalez, Cole Johnston and Franchesca Peña. Audio was produced for Morning Edition and All Things Considered by John Kalani Zak. He shares his perspective on working with the Military Voices Initiative segments in his producer's notes.
Local support for this series comes from Hawaiʻi Pacific University.
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Carla Orellana, a Hawaiʻi Island mother who works with wounded warriors, confronted her deepest fears when her son was deployed to Afghanistan. She talks about what it was like learning that her son had been severely injured. -
Friends Richard Ha and Alexey Katko discuss Richard's life and his time as a soldier in the Vietnam War. After dropping out of college, Richard was drafted into the military, where he discovered life-saving leadership skills in the jungles of Vietnam. -
One of the participants was Hawaiʻi Island resident Helen Naho’opi’i, who served in the U.S. Army in the 1970s. She shared a personal story of how she continues to heal after being sexually assaulted while serving.
