Topic: Where The U.S. Military Is The Family Business

The military makes allowances for those who score below 31 on ASVAB but are otherwise good candidates for service--particularly in American Samoa.
Though most recruiting offices nationwide are allowed to grant ASVAB exemptions to about 4 percent of their enlistees, American Samoa is being allowed far greater latitude. In fiscal 2006, for example, some 38 percent of those who enlisted for active duty at the island's recruiting office had scored below 31, and about 32 percent of those who enlisted for the Reserves scored below the benchmark.
To be sure, language has something to do with it. In American Samoa, most people speak Samoan the majority of the time; the ASVAB takers struggle to read and comprehend the test, administered only in English.
Poverty and poor schools also contribute. Almost half of teachers in the public schools do not have four-year college degrees. Statistics show that a majority of students in American Samoa perform below federal education standards.
Unlike Guam, the United States' other Pacific territory where billions of dollars are being poured into the economy, infrastructure and education system as the U.S. military increases its troop presence, American Samoa has little practical evidence that any real changes are coming anytime soon.
A military benefit?
The military provides Samoans with steady work and the promise of a pension, but those who return in need of health care often find services lacking.
Because there is no veterans hospital there, vets receive all treatment at the Lyndon B. Johnson Tropical Medical Center, a federally subsidized hospital with a long history of problems. It remains in such financial straits that it routinely cannot stock its pharmacy or purchase the chemicals needed for X-rays.
A U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical clinic, to be staffed by two full-time doctors, is finally set to open in American Samoa this year, but vets still will have to fly more than 2,500 miles to Hawaii for any non-routine treatment.
"It's embarrassing how little is being done for the Samoans," said Johnny Mapu, the outreach coordinator for the VA in American Samoa and himself a Samoan who once served in the military. "So many people here are entitled to a laundry list of benefits . . . but they haven't received it because it's not available here. It's the general principle of `out of sight, out of mind.'"
About 40 soldiers from an American Samoa Army Reserve unit, however, are being sent to an inpatient facility in Hawaii for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. The unit showed a higher rate of PTSD than many units in the U.S. Mapu's hypothesis is that the soldiers--neighbors, cousins, old high school classmates--are closer than soldiers in other units and thus more traumatized by seeing each other in danger, injured or killed.
Ironically, it has been in death that Samoans finally have received benefits that equal those of their mainland military counterparts.
In 2005, the Pentagon announced changes in death benefits for troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan that meant dependents would be paid $500,000.
Up a winding hill on the outskirts of Pago Pago, the widow of Staff Sgt. Frank Tiai, an American Samoan police officer who joined the Army Reserves to supplement his paltry income, sits at a computer in a newly built home office. The window above her monitor overlooks her husband's grave. Talosaga Tiai used the military death benefit from her husband, who was killed in Iraq on July 17, 2005, to start a rental car company she hopes will provide for the couple's two children far into the future.
She now has a fleet of shiny vehicles and a steadily expanding profit margin for her company, Toa Samoa, which translates to Hero of Samoa. She has money set aside for her children's college education.
But her 20-year-old son, who flew to Hawaii to accompany his father's body on its final trip home, has announced other plans: He may enlist in the Marines.
Guns or tuna
Faded black-and-white photographs at the American Samoa Historic Preservation Office show almost the exact moment when everything changed on this island, once largely untouched by the outside world. It was 1940, and Imperial Japan had become a grave threat to the U.S. and others. Though the U.S. had claimed American Samoa as a territory for decades, it essentially had left the island alone.
But with the Japanese military looming, the deep-water port at Pago Pago became one of the U.S. Navy's most important coaling stations, one that eventually would fuel much of the Pacific Fleet during the coming war. Almost overnight, U.S. Marines--staged on the island for quick deployment in the event of war--outnumbered American Samoa's native inhabitants. Most male Samoans over the age of 14 were called to be trained for the possibility of combat and to help guard the harbor.
The military uniform brought a financial boost and great prestige, no small thing on an island where status of family affects land ownership and wealth.
When World War II began, many Samoan men were not content to stay home while the Marines with whom they had trained went off to combat. They enlisted in the U.S. military and shipped out. Today it is common to find families that have given three generations of men and women to military service, as the grandchildren of those first enlistees now serve in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"Every family here has people in it who have served in the military dating back to those days. Every one, the whole island," said Tolani Teleso, who has been appointed as a civilian aide for American Samoa for every U.S. secretary of the Army since 1987. "It is what started it all."
Except for a fortunate few athletes who have made it in the NFL, most American Samoans looking for work have only one alternative to military service: the island's tuna canneries.
In round-the-clock shifts, some 5,000 Samoans--about one-third of the territory's entire workforce--work at the StarKist and Chicken of the Sea tuna factories, huge fenced-off complexes on the northern shore of the main island. In the heat of the tropics, the stench outside the two sprawling plants is nauseating.
The average cannery worker makes about $3.25 per hour, and the annual income of even a long-term employee can be far less than what a first-year private makes in the Army. Again and again, American Samoans who join the military say they do so to provide better lives for their children. Child advocacy groups routinely sound alarms at the fact that more than 60 percent of American Samoan children live in poverty.
In powerful contrast, military veterans return to American Samoa to live out retirements that seem almost royal compared to the day-to-day struggles of most Samoans. They drive brand-new extended-cab pickup trucks, build homes palatial by Samoan standards and provide for their families with a pension that far exceeds what many workers make after a lifetime of service in a local job.
No Army recruiting poster could ever be as effective a marketing tool.
Marching off
This spring, as the school year winds down, high school recruiter Sgt. Maj. Semo Veavea watches his seniors a little more closely. Who is ready? Who needs more guidance? He feels a deep responsibility for these young men and women who are, at least in part, joining the military because of his influence.
"Some people probably say, `Why encourage these kids to join the military today, during a time of war?'" said Veavea, who himself chose the military as a way out, serving more than 20 years in the Army before retiring to teach ROTC on the island. "But I say, `What else do they have?'"
At the Time family's home, young Emosi recently got his first official order from the military: Report for basic training in June.
He also has applied for college at the University of Hawaii. In a perfect world, he could attend school during the week and attend to his Army Reserve obligations on the weekends. In the real world, the Army very likely could deploy him before he has the chance to buy his first book.
"I'll accept any orders that come," Time said. "I see joining the military as a great opportunity for my future, but I understand that it also means I won't control that future myself for a while."
When he was done talking, Time filed back into formation with the rest of the Junior ROTC cadets. As they marched away, he was lost in the sea of uniforms.