Veterans Corner

Community Contributed

By Jesse Church

Aloha my fellow veterans and residents of Molokai, old Jesse here with all the veterans news and upcoming events. Kick the bucket, bite the dust, pushing up daisies. All creative ways to say, he or she is no longer with us, and of course the military way to highlight death is, he bought the farm. Why? Around WWII, pilots began to say that when a jet crashed on a farm, the farmer usually sued the government for damages done to his farm by the crash. The amount demanded was either more than or equal to the mortgage, around $10,000 at the time, buying the farm outright. Since this type of crash is nearly always fatal to the pilot the pilot paid for the farm with his life, otherwise known as “buying the farm.”

I hope that everyone did well with the last question, which was, on average what is the warmest location in the nation? The answer is Key West, Florida, which has an average daily temperature of 78.1 degrees Fahrenheit year-round. Key West also boasts sunshine 76 percent of the time.

The new question is, what name was Hawaii known by before it joined the union in 1959?

On July 17, 1941 two Cleveland Indians pitchers combine to stop New York Yankee’s star jolting Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak. A major league baseball record that still stand to this date.

On July 28, 1945 a B-25 bomber crashes into New York City’s Empire State Building killing 13 people and injuring 26 more.

With the start of World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, most American men were signing up for the military. America needs workers to replace the men in the factories, that’s when the American women stepped in replacing the men. By last 1943 a third of civilian jobs, 5 million of them in war factories were filled by women. Billboards went up recruiting women to the workplace, companies offered childcare, or provided meals to take home as incentives to lure women to the workforce. But I’m sorry to stay that 1944 women got an average of $31.21 a week for working gin war related factories, while men doing the same jobs were paid $54.65. If it was not for the American women workforce we could not have won World War II. I will continue this article in my next column.

I’d like to thank everybody for all your support of our troops stationed around the globe, especially the courageous men and women that are in harm’s way, and our veterans at home, for all that you do for us, and have always done, I send you a big mahalo. If anyone has any questions, suggestions, or news, please give old Jesse a call at 553-3323. I hope that everybody is having a wonderful summer an please remember that old Jesse loves you all. So until my next column, aloha.