By Dr. Richard Kelley

As I have been watching the news reports about the potential merger of United and Continental, I feel like a captain in the old days, when sailing ships crossed the oceans with little information on the weather and sea conditions ahead. Storm clouds meant, “Sailor, beware!” but there was little the captain could do.  Read the rest of this entry

By Dr. Richard Kelley

Yesterday, April 30, marked the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, which brought an end to the Vietnam War. The occasion called forth a number of memories about the early days of the Outrigger Waikiki Hotel and how our company, Hawaii, my family, and I were touched in many ways by a war thousands of miles away in Southeast Asia.

When the Outrigger Waikiki opened late in 1967, the Vietnam War had been “hot” for almost four years. The number of U.S. troops fighting there was approaching half a million. The bloody Tet Offensive followed in January and February of 1968.

Although the Tet Offensive was a devastating military defeat for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces that launched it, the reporting of the cruel, bloody fighting by the increasingly disenchanted American media fed the U.S. public’s growing disillusionment and turned America’s military victory into a resounding public relations defeat. This proved to be the watershed event that led to the eventual U.S. withdrawal and defeat.

As U.S. public opinion increasingly turned against the war, clashes between anti-war protestors and the authorities sometimes grew ugly. One of the landmark events that further galvanized opposition to the war occurred on May 4, 1970, when troops of the Ohio Army National Guard were deployed to contain the violent anti-war protests that had erupted in the town of Kent and on the campus of Kent State University. Suddenly, the troops opened fire on unarmed Kent State students, killing four and wounding nine.

More protests immediately erupted across the country, including at Ohio University in the town of Athens, a short drive from Kent. Anxious to avoid a repeat of the events at Kent State, Ohio University’s president shut the school down on May 15, 1970, and cancelled its commencement, scheduled for June 14, 1970.

One of the members of the Class of 1970 at Ohio University was Linda Van Gilder, who would become my wife nine years later. As the first person from her family to graduate from a four-year university, she had already rented a cap and gown in early May. When commencement ceremonies were abruptly cancelled, she returned them unused with great disappointment and has no memory of ever receiving her diploma.

In the midst of the war’s chaos, the military undertook several programs designed to give U.S. troops a brief break from the horrors of battle. These included sending entertainers to military camps near the front lines. Troops were also given a week off for “rest and recreation,” dubbed “R&R.” The single guys generally took their R&R in major Asian cities such as Bangkok, Tokyo, Manila, or Taipei. Air Force Sergeant Bill Peters (now Outrigger’s Vice President, Reservation Services & Market Development) flew to Sydney, Australia. Married servicemen and some singles would meet their wives, girlfriends, and families in Waikiki, and the just-completed Outrigger Waikiki quickly became a favorite R&R location.

It was a hectic time for the members of our ‘ohana working the Front Desk and the Reservations telephones. In those days, Reservations was still a rotary-dial phone operation, with just three or four agents working in a small office behind the Front Desk with little help from the “Stone Age computers” we were just beginning to adapt to our needs at the time.

While the military was able to “schedule” R&R, the vagaries of war introduced a great deal of unpredictability into the timetable. Families would arrive in Waikiki and find that their loved ones in the military had been delayed. With scant communications available, family members who had already arrived in Honolulu had no alternative but to go to Hickam Air Force Base every day and watch the planes unload, hoping to find their husband, brother, or son coming down the steps. Some arrived still in their battle fatigues, having been plucked from the field only a few hours before.

In the midst of all this, the Outrigger Waikiki was always full and scrambling to find space for everyone. Each night was a struggle, as we balanced commitments to tourists and last-minute calls from the R&R Housing Office pleading for “just one more room” for a serviceman. Interestingly, one of the officers responsible for the R&R program was Col. John Chasteen, father of two members of our ‘ohana, Renovations Manager Peggy Chasteen and former Corporate Interior Designer Patricia Moore.

Still imbued with the ethos of World War II, where everybody wanted to “pitch in” any way they could, we always wanted to do our best for the men who were putting their lives on the line for their country, and we usually managed to find a room for that “just one more” soldier, sailor, marine, or airman that the R&R Housing Office was trying to help.

The effort was not without cost, however. In 1970, I was slapped with a subpoena one day to appear in court to answer to a tourist whose room had been given to a serviceman on R&R. We fought the case and lost, and Dold v. Outrigger has become the classic benchmark for hotel overbooking liability in America. However, I supported our staff, and if I had to make the same choice again today, I wouldn’t change a thing.

One of the favorite hangouts in the Outrigger Waikiki for the guys on R&R was Davy Jones Locker. This was a basement bar with a great big window giving an underwater view of the swimming pool. There was lots of action to watch during the day, and in the evening, after the swimmers retired, a musician or two provided entertainment.

University of Hawaii students Terrie and Jennie Frankel, known as the Twin Sisters Two, played Davy Jones Locker from 1970 to 1972 and were very popular with the R&R crowd. Having also toured remote U.S. military camps in Vietnam with the USO as entertainers in November and December 1968, they could authentically relate to their audience and made them really feel at home.

Many members of our ‘ohana served our country during the Vietnam War, including Marine Corps Lieutenant Bill Henderson (recipient of the Silver Star and formerly Outrigger’s Vice President, Business Development), Marine Corps Captain Alan White (now Outrigger’s Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer), and many more.

I came very close to serving in Vietnam alongside Bill Peters, Bill Henderson, Alan White, and so many others. At the height of the war, the government announced that doctors up to age 40 were going to be drafted. As a licensed physician, I was summoned to the “Waikiki Induction Center,” a collection of World War II shacks in the middle of Fort DeRussy, next to Battery Randolph, with a large group of young doctors. It was quite a sight – visualize a good percentage of Honolulu’s physicians, with little, if any, clothing on, all standing around for several hours getting pre-induction physicals!

Ultimately, they divided us into two groups by birth date. My group was sent home. The cutoff date was January 1, 1934. My birthday is December 28, 1933, just three days shy of the cutoff. I’ve often wondered how different my life would have been if I had been in the group of physicians that was inducted that day, many of whom then served in Vietnam. There’s no question in my mind that, if drafted, I’d have gone quite willingly. Having grown up during World War II and having been in ROTC throughout high school and my first two years of college, I’d always assumed I would spend some time in the military.

Today, quite a few of our ‘ohana are from Vietnam, people who, one way or another, escaped that unhappy country and came to the United States to seek a better life for themselves and their families. They include Mai Ho and Quyen Phan who fled the oppression in Vietnam about 27 years ago as “boat people,” braving the open ocean in a small rickety craft, facing mortal peril every step of the way, before arriving at a refugee camp and an unknown future. We are proud of them all and feel lucky to have them as members of our ‘ohana.

Jennie and Terrie Frankel retired in Arizona after traveling around the world and living fascinating lives. In their active days, they wrote several books, including You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again, a spicy Hollywood tale that sold 450,000 copies and hit the best-seller lists in both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times! Jennie also served as an Emmy awards judge, and Terrie was a member of the board of directors of the Producers Guild of America. I am sad to report that Jennie passed away about two years ago.

My wife Linda and I recently had a reunion with Terrie in Sedona, Arizona. Talking about times past, Terrie said, “Nothing can compare to those days in Vietnam at the age of 18 and later singing at Davy Jones Locker at the Outrigger Waikiki, where we were treated with respect and love from the GIs.”

Even though 35 years have passed since the fall of Saigon, some of the issues of the Vietnam War are still with us. It was certainly a part of the U.S. presidential race between George Bush and John Kerry in 2006, when the service records of both candidates were questioned.

According to USA Today, the search goes on for approximately 1,835 men and women who are still officially listed as “missing in action” (MIA). Last week, the Pentagon identified the remains of four more U.S. servicemen, lost in 1967.

However, there is evidence that the passions ignited by the Vietnam War are cooling. My wife Linda recently received an invitation from her former college classmate, Rod McDavis, now Dr. Roderick J. McDavis, president of Ohio University, to attend her long-postponed graduation ceremonies on June 12, 2010. In concert with the regular commencement exercises for the Class of 2010, graduates of the Class of 1970 will have the opportunity to reclaim their lost commencement. They will don caps and gowns, walk across the stage, and finally receive their diplomas, along with some well-deserved applause – only 40 years late.

And, as recently reported by Darren Edmonstone in Saturday Briefing, capitalism is alive, well, and expanding in Southeast Asia, even in Vietnam. Deluxe cruise ships include Vietnam on their itineraries. China Beach, where U.S. Marines landed in full battle gear 40 years ago, now has a string of modern resort hotels with azure swimming pools and beach bungalows just a few yards from the sand, once again pristine and white.

Perhaps some day there will be an opportunity for the announcement of the opening of an Outrigger or OHANA hotel in Vietnam. If that happens, Linda and I definitely want to attend the party. We’ll bring along Terrie Frankel and hope we can persuade her to play a few more songs, just as she did 40 years ago!