Militarism in the Micronesian Region: A Tragedy in Three Acts
Davis Rehuher is a PhD student in Public Health at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and a Graduate Degree Fellow at the East-West Center. His research interests include health, mental health, educational outcomes, and film representations of Pacific Islanders, focusing on Micronesian communities at home and abroad.
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policies or positions of the Pacific Islands Development Program or the East-West Center.
Featured image courtesy: US Marine Corps, Wikimedia Commons.
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Act I: World War II
The poem above is by the renowned Marshallese contemporary poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner.1 Hooked is a searing and harrowing description of a Marshallese man’s experiences during World War II (WWII) and how those horrific, raw, traumatic ordeals, and an unexpected life-saving turn of events would transform his life with unforeseen and devastating consequences decades later. The man’s experiences foreshadow the eventual transition to a Western-based diet, which has resulted in high diabetes rates across the whole region.
During WWII, the Micronesian islands became the battleground for intense and destructive battles between the US and Japan. In 1944, the US launched invasions from the Marshall Islands in the east, moving westward to seize Saipan and Guam in the Mariana Islands and Palau. Central Micronesia was not directly invaded but suffered isolation, blockades, and relentless bombardment by air and sea by the US.2 As support from Japan dwindled, both Japanese and Micronesians faced severe starvation. Micronesians suffered as much, if not more, than the Americans and the Japanese. The American air raids could kill them, and they were forced to give up their food and water and were subject to beatings, executions, and displacement, having to flee their homes and hide out in caves for safety.3 A Chuukese survivor talked about traumatic experiences similar to that of the Marshallese man in the opening poem:
The third day after the air raid bombed this place, what could I say, I can’t say anything that would really describe the scene at the time. Everywhere I went, I saw dead people just lying around everywhere. Sometimes I’d find an arm or a leg or even a head separated from the body–people were dying out in the open, a messy death.4
These experiences happened throughout the entire region, not just in Chuuk and the Marshall Islands. After the war, the Japanese and American soldiers returned home and presumably received the best care their countries could offer. Micronesians, however, were left to fend for themselves. For the most part, the trauma they and their descendants endured has never been acknowledged, much less addressed. Studies investigating the effects of historical trauma from WWII have only been done on Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.5 More needs to be done to understand how WWII and historical trauma affected the other Micronesian islands.
Act II: Nuclear Weapons Testing in the Marshall Islands
Immediately after WWII, the US began testing nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands. In total, 67 thermonuclear devices were detonated between 1946 and 1958. These tests equaled the power of 7,200 Hiroshima bombs.6 In 1954, Castle Bravo, the largest of the tests, was carried out on Bikini Atoll. It was over 21 times larger than expected, dropped radioactive ash more than 7,000 square miles from the test site, and blanketed nearby inhabited islands. Children unknowingly played in the “snow,”7 as the US Navy did not inform residents that these locations may experience nuclear fallout, resulting in chronic exposure to radiation from contaminated food and water.8 Soon after, birth defects and cancer rates increased significantly. Lijon Eknilang, a Marshallese woman who was exposed during the nuclear tests as a child and subsequently suffered seven miscarriages, testified about the effects of nuclear testing at the International Court of Justice in 1995:
Marshallese women . . . give birth, not to children as we like to think of them, but to things we could only describe as “octopuses,” “apples,” “turtles,” and other things in our experience. . . . The most common birth defects on Rongelap and nearby islands have been “jellyfish” babies. These babies are born with no bones in their bodies and with transparent skin. . . . Many women die from abnormal pregnancies and those who survive give birth to what looks like purple grapes which we quickly hide away and bury. . . . We do not have Marshallese words for these kinds of babies, because they were never born before the radiation came.9
Over seventy years later, the Marshallese people are still experiencing the debilitating effects of nuclear testing: health problems, displacement from ancestral lands, loss of cultural practices, and loss of food resources due to radioactive contamination of the land and ocean which they depended on to live. A United Nations Human Rights Council report found similar results and determined that environmental contamination was almost irreversible.11
“For the good of mankind.” That is what the US Navy told the chief of Bikini Island as the reason for the nuclear tests, and only for a short period of time. In fact, the people of Bikini would never be able to return home.12 “Mankind” apparently does not include Marshallese.
Act III: Micronesians in the US Military and Access to Health Care
Island Soldier is a 2017 documentary exploring the lives of three soldiers from Kosrae State in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).13 Their stories reflect why Micronesians join the US military: for economic reasons. One also seemed to have wanderlust and was excited to move away. The other was a school teacher who joined to better support his family—his salary as a teacher in Kosrae was nothing compared to the starting pay of a soldier, although that is low in the US. The third story, the one that opens the film, is one that recruiters do not talk about: the death of a loved one from military service. In communities as small as the ones in Micronesia, the death of a young person is devastating for the entire community. Quotes from Island Soldier show concerns about the dangers of war, battling someone else’s war, and returning to face another battle: “We don’t vote, but we can get killed. You know, we can serve and get killed.”
“We die for others, we jump on grenades for others, we protect other people, why is it that we want to go to a risky place? Why, why, why? . . . Coming back from Afghanistan, you survived the real battle. But there’s another battle when you come back to reconnect with your family.”
The biggest issue Island Soldier highlighted was the lack of access to health care for Micronesian veterans. Injured or retired soldiers must pay their way to Guam, Hawaiʻi, or the US continent to receive care, which is out of reach for most veterans. Further, among Pacific Islanders, including Micronesians, both returning veterans and their families exhibit higher levels of mental health problems.14 As medical and healthcare facilities in the Micronesian countries are limited, veterans who need special care must travel off-island. The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) does not have facilities in these countries and does not pay to transport Micronesian veterans to VA facilities in the US because they are independent countries.15 As a Pohnpeian veteran put it:
“To make it short, there is no health care or medical assistance to hundreds of deserving veterans who have served and earned these benefits. We are slowly dying here on our turf where we were picked up and dropped after honorably serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.”16
When recruited in their own countries by US military recruiters, the fact that they were from independent countries was not an issue. However, once enlisted, served, discharged, and seeking help for injuries from military duty, these same countries are now problems that prevent access to health services.
These events span nearly 80 years to the present. There continue to be unaddressed issues relating to World War II and nuclear weapons testing, years after they took place. Access to health care for Micronesian veterans has been an ongoing issue for the past couple of decades. Each case requires further awareness of and application of appropriate interventions and funding mechanisms to rectify. Overall, a systemic pattern of abuse, ignorance, neglect, and unwillingness to take action point to issues of social justice for Micronesian victims of war and weapons experimentation, and barriers to care for Micronesian veterans.
References
1 Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, “Hooked,” In Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter, (University of Arizona Press, 2017), 14-18.
2 Hanlon, David. Remaking Micronesia: Discourses over development in a Pacific Territory, 1944-1982. University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998; Poyer, Lin. “Micronesian experiences of the war in the Pacific” In Remembering the Pacific War Occasional Paper series 36, edited by Geoffrey M. White, 79. Honolulu, HI: Center for Pacific Islands Studies, School of Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, 1991; Poyer, Lin, Suzanne Falgout, and Lawrence M. Carucci. The typhoon of war: Micronesian experiences of the Pacific War. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001.
3 Poyer, Lin. “Micronesian experiences of the war in the Pacific” In Remembering the Pacific War Occasional Paper series 36, edited by Geoffrey M. White, 79. Honolulu, HI: Center for Pacific Islands Studies, School of Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, 1991; Poyer, Lin, Suzanne Falgout, and Lawrence M. Carucci. The typhoon of war: Micronesian experiences of the Pacific War. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001; Poyer, Lin. “Chuukese Experiences in the Pacific War.” The Journal of Pacific History 43, no. 2 (2008): 223–38. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25169810.
4 Poyer, Lin. “Chuukese Experiences in the Pacific War.” The Journal of Pacific History 43, no. 2 (2008): 223–38. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25169810.
5 Rapadas, Juan M. “Transmission of Violence: The Legacy of Colonialism in Guam and the Path to Peace.” Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology 1, no. 2, (2007): 33–40. https://doi.org/10.1375/prp.1.2.33; Furey Maratita, Jennifer Ada. “Intergenerational Historical Trauma and Posttraumatic Growth in an Indigenous Pacific Island Community.” ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2017.
6 Palafox, Neal, Sheldon Riklon, Sekap Esah, Davis Rehuher, William Swain, Kristina Stege, Dale Naholowaa, Allen Hixon, and Kino Ruben, K. “The Micronesians” In People and Cultures of Hawai‘i, edited by J. F. McDermott & N. N. Andrade 295-315. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2011.
7 Swenson, Kyle. “The U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific Island. Now it’s cracking open.” Washington Post, May 20, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/20/us-put-nuclear-waste-under-dome-pacific-island-now-its-cracking-open/.
8 Keju-Johnson, Darlene. “For the Good of Mankind.” Seattle Journal for Social Justice, 2(1), Article 59, 2010. https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj/vol2/iss1/59.
9 Eknilang, Lijon. “Oral presentation of the Marshall Islands.” Advisory Proceedings on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. International Court of Justice, The Hague, Netherlands, 1995, https://alynware.kiwi/blog/2020/12/nuclear-weapons-and-law-for-the-future/.
10 Palafox, Neal, Sheldon Riklon, Sekap Esah, Davis Rehuher, William Swain, Kristina Stege, Dale Naholowaa, Allen Hixon, and Kino Ruben, K. “The Micronesians” In People and Cultures of Hawai‘i, edited by J. F. McDermott & N. N. Andrade 295-315. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2011.
11 United Nations Human Rights Council. “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes,” Calin Georgescu. Addendum. Mission to the Marshall Islands (27-30 March 2012) and the United States of America (24-27 April 2012). A/HRC/21/48/Add.1. http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/alldocs.aspx?doc_id=20560.
12 Keju-Johnson, Darlene. “For the Good of Mankind.” Seattle Journal for Social Justice, 2(1), Article 59, 2010. https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj/vol2/iss1/59.
13 Island Soldier. Directed Nathan Finch. 2017; Meerkat Media, NY. Documentary Film.
14 Pitts, Barbara, Julia M. Whealin, and Jackson Kato. “Risk factors for suicidal behavior depend on age for veterans in the Pacific Islands.” Suicide and Life‐Threatening Behavior, 48 no. 6, (2018): 642-651. https://doi.org/10.1111/sltb.12376; Whealin, Julia M., Dawna Nelson, Michelle M. Kawasaki, M and Michael A. Mahoney. “Factors impacting rural Pacific Island veterans’ access to care: A qualitative examination.” Psychological Services, 14 no. 3, (2017): 279-288. https://doi.org/10.1037/ser0000161.
15 Blair, Chad. “Lawmakers urge medical help for Micronesian veterans,” Civil Beat, March 29, 2018. https://www.civilbeat.org/2017/03/lawmakers-urge-medical-help-for-micronesian-veterans/.
16 Blair, “Lawmakers urge medical help for Micronesian veterans,” Civil Beat, March 29, 2018. https://www.civilbeat.org/2017/03/lawmakers-urge-medical-help-for-micronesian-veterans/.