 navigating the journey. So if you're ready, I'm on board because today we are going on a real void, a sea void, a voyage that most of us have no idea about. And it is a voyage across the Pacific to places that are on the map, but most of us don't know anything about. So our guide today is Anne Wright. She is a retired colonel of the U.S. Army. So Aloha, Anne, and thank you for taking us on this voyage. Aloha, Marsha, and thank you very much for the opportunity to tell people in Hawaii about a wonderful, wonderful, a little tiny historic ship that was here in Honolulu 61 years ago in 1958. It's an anti-nuclear ship. It was a little boat that was to sail to the Marshall Islands. Do we have a picture of the boat? We do, yes indeed. We do. The very first picture. There it is. This is the 34-foot golden rule, the golden rule. In Hilo, it arrived last week after a 20-day voyage from San Diego. It is going to be in the Hawaiian Islands for the next four months. If we go to the next picture, we'll see the crew that brought it over four men who were from different parts of the country. Our captain was from Poland. One young man, 19 years old, was from North Carolina. The man in the middle picture, Tom Rogers, is a retired Navy captain who was a nuclear submarine commander. And now he's riding on a boat that says we're challenging the nuclear weapon propensity of our world. And the man on the left is a great electronics engineer out of the Bay Area. And the next picture shows us the original. That is a little boat. It is a little boat. This is the original crew. How long is it? It's only 34 feet long for crew members. These are the crew members back in 1958. There were four Quakers. All these guys were Quakers. And they decided they were going to sail from the US through Hawaii and then onto the Marshall Islands to try to stop atmospheric nuclear testing. You know, back in the 50s, the US was blowing up the Marshall Islands like crazy. Yes. And so much radioactivity was in the air from not only the US nuclear explosions, but also the Russians were doing this. So this little boat of four Quakers came through Honolulu. And if we go to the next picture, we'll see they were stopped three different times by the Coast Guard. The US government didn't want civilians up in that area, as you can imagine. There's human shields, so to speak. So every time the little boat tried to sail out, Coast Guard stopped them, brought the crew and the captain back in and threw them in jail. So it's really quite a historic boat. It really is the predecessor to Greenpeace, to Greenpeace. And if we look at that next picture, we'll see that this is the welcome in Hilo and have welcome Golden Rule peace boat challenging nuclear madness and the militarization of the Pacific Islands. And there we have on the very left is Jerry Condon, who is the national president of Veterans for Peace. This is the national organization that has taken on the renovation of this little boat as a national project. And Helen Jakard, who is the one woman that's in the middle there. She is the national project coordinator. And for the last three years, we've been sailing the boat up and down the west coast of the United States, dropping in on various ports to have educational events on the whole issue of nuclear weapons and the nuclear program that the United States has. And that they're trying to get out of. Indeed, in just this last week. Yes, that's your president. That's right. President Trump has removed the United States from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which is precipitating another instance of precipitating another Cold War tragically with the Russians and and other things that are now going on with the Chinese. So it's it's not a good move at all of first getting out of the nuclear agreement with the Iranians and now removing the United States from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. We you met Tom Kaufman, the author. He did a beautiful piece many, many years ago called May Earth Live, which is a prayer. May Earth Live. It was but he talks about the fact that they found residuals of those bombs right here in Hawaii at the top of the mountains. So it wasn't like it was just the Marshall Islands. It was all over the Pacific. Indeed, and in fact, all over the world, the the residual effects of and the radioactive particles from these hundreds of explosions that were done not only in the Marshall Islands, but the French were testing. And then the British were testing. We tested in in Nevada. All of this put stuff up in the air, radioactive things that were falling down all over the world. And in fact, that was why one why they're the the great movement in the United States against nuclear weapons happened back in the 60s and 70s because they were finding strontium 90, which is a radioactive isotope in cow's milk, and it was being transmitted into mothers and to mothers milk. Yes. And, you know, we we tend to overlook all of this. There were veterans then that were trying the radio veterans. What was the radiation veterans atomic atomic veterans? Yes. And they even denied. We had he's past now a friend who was in the Navy. And he was on the submarine that went up to Nagasaki right after the bombing and picked up the American prisoners to bring him out. Well, he died with 180 different cancers, all of which were denied by the military. And if you look for the record of that submarine, there is no record of it ever having been in Nagasaki. It says they came straight. Well, I don't doubt that the classification having been in the U.S. military for 29 years. And then I was a U.S. diplomat also for 16 years and ended up resigning in opposition to the war in Iraq in 2003. But all of my years in the U.S. government, I certainly know and anybody that's been in the U.S. government knows there are lots of classifications that are of documents and of military operations that will not be declassified for a long, long time more. And I suspect that submarine's journey was one of them. But we do know from other people the effects of that. You know, right here in Hawaii, there are service members that were on ships right outside of Oahu that are called atomic veterans. That they were exposed to things, chemical and other types of harmful things. And then depending on which way the wind was going from the Marshall Islands, you know, whether or not, you know, the Hawaiian Islands to the northwest, northeast, we're getting that radioactivity. Well, and Guam was able to get because they took the ships after the testing. They took the ships into Guam and to Pearl to wash them down. Now, Guam got reparations for that. But we didn't because they wouldn't admit that it had happened. However, at Pearl Harbor, if you go along the fence, it tells you that it's off limits. You can't go in, you know. But they never admitted it publicly at here like they did at Guam. Well, you know, these little boats like this, the golden rule that we're talking about now, there was another boat that happened into the Honolulu Harbor at exactly the same time in 1958. And it was called the Phoenix. And it had been built in Hiroshima by an American family. The father was a scientist and had been sent by the Atomic Energy Commission to Hiroshima to study the effects of the atomic bombs on people of Japan. His study, of course, showed the horrific effects of it. And he was so aghast at what had happened. He built this little boat and then he sailed all around the world talking about the need to stop nuclear explosions. And they just happened and this around the world trip to come into Honolulu just as the golden rule was there. And as they saw the golden rule trying to go to the Marshall Islands three different times and being brought back and the crew and captain being put in jail, the Reynolds family just kind of kept quiet. And then they sailed. They sailed to the Marshall Islands and they were able to get into the Marshall Islands and to say, we are here as human seals. Let's stop this. But the whole issue of how much information we knew about what the Japanese people had suffered from these atomic bombs was not declassified. Mr. Reynolds' study was not declassified until, as I understand it, just a decade or so ago. So there's a lot of information that's out there. And we as citizens should be very, very concerned about this now that there's a heating up again of the whole nuclear issues. And putting pressure on our government to say, we do not want these nuclear weapons, you know, now in the U.N. last year, they passed the the a treaty saying we will abolish nuclear weapons in the world. There are something like 87 countries that have already signed it. The United States has not signed it and probably will be the last one to sign it. That's why we as citizens have to really push hard. These things will kill all of us on earth. Well, you know, here in Hawaii, we see the people from the Marshall Islands and we see their suffering. And I've been a patient at Trippler since 1972. And I have a friend that you get to meet a lot of friends when you. And they told me that there are so many cancers with the people from these islands that they are numbered. They don't have names. Well, I believe that. You said there's just so many of them. The Compact for Free Association, which the United States has with both the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, where I was a diplomat for two years and back from 8098 to 2000. The US government has attempted on some level to provide medical treatment for those people who have been identified as those that are suffering from diseases that come from the nuclear explosions. But when you really look at the breadth of contact and the exposure to now even in the Marshall Islands, this big dome that the United States has built over one of the islands who try to contain the radioactivity from this is now leaking. And as we and we know right here in Hawaii about the ocean rising, just think what that's going to do when the ocean rises. And then all of that moves through the ocean. Indeed, it's a horrific weapon that was used against humans and could be used again unless we stop this. And that's really the mission of our Golden Rule boat. As it comes into Hawaii, it's in Hilo. It will be there through the end of the month and then go over to Kona for the first week of September and on to Maui for the remainder of September, then to Lanai in October and then Molokai by mid-October. And then mid-October, it comes on over to Oahu and will be here till the 1st of December. Oh, good. Then on to Kauai till the middle of December. And then it will sail to the Marshall Islands. So we get to actually see the boat. Indeed, you will see it and we have people who can come to schools and churches and civic groups to talk about the need for us as citizens to stop our government from this nuclear madness that we have. How is it that we are still building these things and there's no, well, we see in Fukushima, there's no way to get rid of it. Indeed, between the nuclear energy plants that flood and then explode or Fukushima or Chernobyl, the closeness that we've come from Indian Point and in New York, these things will kill people. They do. They do kill people. Yeah. Well, you know, we need to take a break and we will be back in 60 seconds. And then I want to know more about you because that's a great career. OK, we'll be right back. Aloha, my name is Wendy Lowe, and I want you to join me as we take our health back. On my show, all we do is talk about things in everyday life in Hawaii or abroad. I have guests on board that would just talk about different aspects of health in every in every way, whether it's medical health, nutritional health, diabetic health, you name it, we'll talk about it. Even financial health will even have some of the Miss Hawaii's on board and all the different topics that I feel will make your health and your lifestyle a lot better. So come join me. I welcome you to take your health back. Mahalo. Aloha, I'm Winston Welch, host of Out and About. It's a show that we have every other Monday on Think Back Live here. We explore a variety of topics that are really interesting. We have organizations, events and the people who fuel them in our city, state, country and world. We've got some amazing guests on here, like all the shows at Think Tech. So if you want to catch up on stuff, tune into my show every other Monday and other shows here on Think Back Live. It's a great place to learn about stuff, to be informed. And if you have some ideas, come on my show. Let's talk about it. See you later and Aloha. Aloha, I'm Marcia Joyner and we're back. We are navigating the journey. And this journey today takes us out into the Pacific. So, and as I said, most of these islands are places that you hear in romantic novels or you're used to, but most people don't know where they are. So we would like to show you a map. It's just a brief map that give you a sense of California. See how far we are? We are, what, 2,500 miles from California. And then down to the Marshall Islands. And there are a thousand little islands in that group. And then up to Guam and to Japan. Now we skip the Federated States of Micronesia, which has three time zones. That's how big it is. And that's how many islands are out there, three time zones. And so on up to Japan. And that's that's the route of the boat. The Golden Rule. Yes, it is. How many of the islands, the Marshall Islands, do you visit? Or can you visit? Will you visit? Well, we'll stop at the very first island or the big island where the capital, Majuro, is. And then it depends on how the government of the Marshall Islands, where they would like for us to go. You can pretty well be assured we won't be going into Quadjalan, which is the U.S. military base there. The end of the... Majuro, that same island. The same peninsula or whatever you call it. What I want you to do before you leave, I want you to meet, you probably know Ikeika Anderson. He's chair of the city council. His wife is from Majuro. You must meet her. It would be our honor to. Thank you. We have met with the council general of the Marshall Islands here and grieved her on the... She's a lovely person, yes. She is indeed, yes. And we're looking forward to meeting the president of the Marshall Islands and her daughter, who is a wonderful, wonderful poet, who has written and said some written word, spoken word, that is so remarkable about the plight of the people of the Marshall Islands with this legacy of nuclear explosions there that have just destroyed decimated, incinerated islands of theirs. Yes. One island, that hole in the middle of the ocean. Yes. Just gone. Gone. Gone. And so we will go to as many of the islands as the government of the Marshall Islands would like for us to go to. We would love to drop down either further down to the federated states of Micronesia, but we're kind of on a timeline. We want to get to Japan and Hiroshima and Nagasaki by August of 2020. And we'll probably continue on over to Guam where, again, there's a large US military presence, not only Anderson air base, but also a large naval base that's there. And a lot of movement from US military from Okinawa because of the great citizen movement to try to reduce the number of US bases on Okinawa, and some of those military are being sent down to the Guam. So we will stop there and then we'll probably stop in Saipan and go on up through the northern Marianas and then finally reach Okinawa where we will be for a long period of time because of those US military bases. Now, I have to tell you that Rota, right outside of Saipan, is the prettiest island in the world. It is just absolutely delightful. Well, and, you know, Tinian is another one of those islands and that was where the air base was, where the US bombers that actually dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they took off from Tinian. And then another island, Pagan, is one that the US military is thinking about doing to it what it did to Kulavi, using it as a bombing target. So that we want to go because we don't agree with that. The militarization that we have in the Pacific by the US, and I say this as a person who has spent 29 years in the US military, we should not be using all of these places. Other people's lands to bomb and practice this stuff is not right and they are telling us it's not right. The enormous, enormous citizen movement in Okinawa, which has challenged the construction of a new air base, a Marine Corps actually runway out into Hora Bay, Hanoko, that is tearing up a pristine area of ocean frontage and then the home of the dugun, a marine mammal that's kind of like a manatee. And the numbers of 30,000, 50,000 Okinawans at one time will come out to say America, it's enough, no more, no more. It is, and now I'm telling you this from experience. When I was a little girl, my father naturally in World War II, everybody was in the military, everybody was drafted. And right after the war, we got orders to come out here, my mother and I, because my father was stationed on Saipan. And he was in the ordinance, and he was a first sergeant, and his brother was the commanding officer. And so we left from here to Guam and then to Saipan, where we lived for a long time. But what they did in this cleaning up the islands, because that was their job, the engineers in the court ordinance, they would take all of that ammunition and dump it in the ocean. And I was a little girl, so I wanted to go out on the boat and watch them drop it in the ocean. And no thought of what this was doing to the ocean, none. Well, you know you've been out there, you've seen what it looks like. Well, indeed, and even now, just out off of Oahu, they're still finding all sorts of things, whether it be Japanese submarines, small little submarines, or whether it's a weapons dump that they're finally finding that could be touched by fishing nets and things like that. So the U.S. dumped a lot of ordinance all over the Pacific, which sure did. So while we got to, my mother and I got to stay on Saipan, but they went from island to island with this idea of cleaning it up. And all it did was move it off land and drop it in the ocean. And that was the cleanup mechanism of that time. But then you look now at the last 15 years, U.S. military operations in the Middle East, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria. And you think about the numbers of bombs that have been dropped in those areas. The numbers of deaths from them, of course. But the ones that didn't explode that may be going to kill people in the future. Yes. The amount of ordinance that the U.S. military is capable of dropping it. And any sort of conflict is mammoth. One of our regular guests on one of my other shows, he has, he's suffering from uranium. Is that what it's called? Depleted uranium. Depleted uranium. Yes. He was in the Navy in the first Gulf War or whatever that was called. Yes. Well, Gulf War I. Gulf War I, yes. That's right. Indeed, depleted uranium. Depleted uranium. This depleted uranium is used in materials to harden various kinds of shells to make sure that they go deeper before they explode and things like that. So we do have a lot of people who handle those things. And right here in Hawaii, depleted uranium, targeting shells were used over on the Big And also here in Oahu, the Davy Crockett types of rockets that they were using had these small depleted uranium shells that they're still trying to find where they went. This is, this is just, oh, this is just my goodness. Listen, we have just a little bit of time. Tell us about you, though. Where are you from originally? Well, I grew up in the state of Arkansas and that's why I joined the Army to get out of Arkansas. And then, no, it was up in Bittenville, a little corner, northwest corner. I stayed in and out of the military for decades and then joined the Foreign Service and then was in the Foreign Service 16 years. I served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia. I helped reopen the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December of 2001 and stayed for about five months and then went on to what was my last assignment in Mongolia and it was there when I resigned in opposition to the war on Iraq. And since then I've been challenging the U.S. government on its war policies, among other things. Yes. Tell me about your book that you wrote. Let me get it right here. Descent, Voices of Conscience. Yes. I co-wrote that book in 2007 and it's the stories of men and women of our government who, like myself, I resigned, three of us resigned over the Iraq war, but other people were challenging various aspects of the war, whether it was people that were challenging actually the Guantanamo prison, whether it was challenging the types of operations that were going on, whether it was in the FBI or the Justice Department challenging the way that the prisoners were being treated. So it's a very interesting book. It was published now 12 years ago. Can we still get it? You can still get it and it's time for another one because there are plenty of other people that have dissented rightfully over the policies that we see now. Is it on Amazon? Can we still get it on Amazon? Yes. And then you're going to update it. We need to update it. We surely do. Now, again, how can anyone that wants to meet with you, veterans of peace, the Golden Rule, how can we reach you? How can they reach you? Indeed. We have a website, if you just go to Golden Rule Project, and we have on that our schedule of events, when we'll be going to each of the islands, and we would love to be in touch so that we could come to your school or your church or your civic group to talk about the role of making, as we see here, making Hawaiian the Pacific nuclear free and our whole world nuclear free. Now, this has been a pleasure, of course, always meeting with you. Every time we meet, it's always something new. You're always doing something new. Thank you. But you will come back before your trip to Oahu. You'll come back and our audience will know where to reach, how they can see the boat and everything. Indeed. In fact, we'll put up on your website the actual, our website that will have the schedule for the Golden Rule on it. We would love to come back and bring some of the crew with us so that you can talk to them about why they felt it was important to make these long journeys for peace and to stop the nuclear madness of the world. Well, this is a real pleasure. And again, you will be back. And we will be back again. So we'll see you soon. Aloha.