Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 6, Number 7, 1 July 1989 — Jeno's $50 mllllon dream [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Jeno's $50 mllllon dream

A veterans peaee park for Hawai'i

By Ann L. Moore Assistant Editor, Ka Wai Ola O OHA There's an old saying: "If you're going to dream, dream big." Jimmy "Jeno" Enoeeneio of Ewa Beach has a $50 million dream to build a living memorial for everyone who served in the armed forces of any nation in the world and who survived or died in that service. For Jeno the dream began in a hospital in Vietnam where he awoke after being evacuated from the front lines with cerebral malaria. One moment, he said, he was point man on a reconnaisance sniper team and the next thing he remembers is waking in the hospital. "There was a guy in the bed opposite me and he was bad. His body was half blown away and his face was shot up. He looked at me and sort of half smiled. I realized he was VC, the enemy. And I smiled back at him and gave him the sign and called over to him, 1t's ok, bruddah, our war is over.' So many of the Vietnam people seemed like brothers, you know, my being from Hawaii." Jeno eame home after his 1970-71 tour. He married and he and Caroline had five children, Jamese (16) Ceronda (15) Gina (14) Orion (9) and Tiara (7.) but he never forgot his experience andall the men and women he met in Viet Nam. In the years after his retum he had been to the weleome home parade for Vietnam veterans in Chicago and seen the names of the dead inscribed on the The Wall in Washington D.C. but he couldn't get the living vets out of his mind. He talked it over with Caroline and on March 1, 1986 he started his Lone Soldier Freedom March in California. With donated camping equipment, clothing, camera and a resolution from the Hawaii legislature wishing him luek, Jeno hitch-hiked and walked 15,200 miles across the mainland. "I stopped at Vet Centers everywhere I went and they gave me letters certifying I was there. They helped me meet and talk to veterans from World War 1 through WWIl, Korea and Vietnam. People were great," Jeno said with a smile, "Different organizations helped me with food, places to stay, film, money." Everywhere he went he visited memorials and talked to veterans "from Skid Rows to fancy offices" and he asked them all the same questions: • what was it like when you were growing up? • what event in your war was most important to you? • what was it like when you eame home? • what is your greatest accomplishment to date? • what are your dreams and goals?

• if you could leave one message for the future, what would it be? The answers on the final question eame down to one thing, Jeno said: "Anyone who had ever served in any war never wanted anyone else ever to have to go to war again. "All families have people in their family who have served in some war." Jeno said. "What abouttheir children, our children? What kind of world do we want to leave them, what kind of message do we give the future?" The message Jeno envisions is "A thousand years of peaee" embodied in a "World's Veterans For Peaee Living Memorial Park." Jeno has the spot in mind and he is talking to people who ean help him obtain the land for the memorial, he said. As for the memonal itself, the ground level design wou!d represent a huge sun dial made from variTColored indigenous rock and in the center would be a pyramid with a cross-cut mirrored section forming a stage and audio-visual area. Under the stage, still above ground, would be two

assembly halls looking out over the sundial. Facing the stage would be seating for outdoor events. Under the pyramid and sundial, 10 to 14 levels would be cut into the rock for a library, research and meeting rooms. Here people from around the world, from all walks of life, from the lowliest to the highest, could meet, talk and study together. The dream is visible now only in the model Jeno built of the park. With the model built, the land acquisition talk in progress, Jeno needs a core of voIunteers." I need dreamers who are also doers," he said. Next on Jeno's list is to form a non-profit organization then to make a video of the site and sent it out to anyone who might be interested. "I am going to ask, not beg," he said, "This is soVnething for the world's future, a plaee for the veterans who lived as well as for those who died. A plaee for people to plan a thousand years of peaee so our children will never have to go to war again."

Jimmy Jeno" Enoeeneio

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Model of "World's Veterans For Peaee Living Memorial Park."