“I volunteered to deploy to Iraq. I was one of the few soldiers who were not on the mandatory deployment roster - close to 3,000 Hawaii soldiers were.”

“I remember my first friend who got sick. It was 1981, and the disease was called the gay cancer. I don't think the word 'AIDS' came out until '84. I just remember it being terrifying as more people got sick. We didn't know how you could catch it, you heard all kinds of crazy things.”