Episode 121 - Tales from Punchbowl, Part I

Charles Lacy Veach was the second astronaut from Hawaii. After a career as an Air Force fighter pilot he went to work for NASA as a consultant but eventually became an astronaut himself and flew on two shuttle missions.

Air Force Colonel Charles Lacy Veach died of cancer on October 3, 1995, he was 51 years old. His ashes were placed in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific Columbarium Court 3, Wall J, Niche 233.

Yashiyuki Harold Sakata began life working on various Hawaiian fruit plantations before taking up weightlifting. After World War II began, he joined an Army engineer battalion that stayed on Hawaii for most of the war which gave him the chance to continue to train. He even won a few local lifting competitions. After the war, he won a national event which qualified him for the 1948 London Olympics. In London, he won a silver medal.

After the Olympics, Sakata retired from weightlifting and took up professional wrestling. Over a little more than a decade, he performed with ten or twelve promotions and won three solo and nine tag team championship belts.

Then, in 1964, he hung up his wrestling trunks and began acting. His first role was as the iconic Bond Villain Oddjob in the James Bond file The Man with the Golden Gun. He continued acting for the next two decades in movies, television, and commercials. His last TV appearance was just a few months before his death on stage at the Academy Awards in his Oddjob persona while Sheena Easton performed the Oscar-nominated Bond title song For Your Eyes Only.

Army Technician Fifth Class Harold Sakata dies in 1982 at age 62. He is interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Section III, Grave 317.

Leo Sharp, Sr. was a decorated World War II infantry soldier in the Italian campaign before returning home and eventually gaining fame in the botanical circles for his hybrid daylilies.

While he was well known in the daylily community (he claimed to have even been invited to plant some of his flowers at the White House by President George HW Bush), it apparently didn't pay well and he had a lot of financial issues.

Leo was talked into become a drug mule for the Sinaloa cartel, driving hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Arizona to Michigan and then returning thousands and thousands of dollars back along the same route. He was caught in 2011 and eventually convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. He was released after one year due to poor heath and died in 2016. He was 92 years old.

I'm not sure how he ended up there as he didn't seem to have any prior connection to Hawaii, but Army Private First Class Leo Sharp, Sr. is interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Section CT13A, Row 100, Grave 150. The 2018 Clint Eastwood film The Mule is based on Sharp.

The Godfather of modern American tattooing, Norman Collins, known as Sailor Jerry for most of his professional career. He joined the Navy in 1930, spent several years in East Asia and the Pacific, and learned tattooing from the masters in that region of the world. After he left the Navy, he settled in Honolulu and continued tattooing the service members on Oahu.

Sailor Jerry's tattoos quickly became world famous as US service members took his designs all over the world.

When World War II broke out, he wanted to get back into the Navy but had developed a heart condition and was not allowed to reenlist, but the Merchant Marines were more than happy to get another experienced navigator in their ranks and made him a lieutenant commander.

After the war, Sailor Jerry continued his tattooing. On June 9, 1973, he had heart attack while riding his motorcycle and died three days later. He was 62 years old. Navy Seaman First Class Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins is interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Section T, Grave 124.