But territory won't pull out of Iraq

Michael Field
A couple of months back 19-year-old soldier Satuala Amoa was riding in an armoured Humvee in Iraq when it overturned, landing on him. Fellow American Samoan Sergeant Frank Tia'i raced over to the crash site and led an effort to rescue him.

“Begging for my life, Tia'i held my hand and said, 'You're going to be OK, you're going to make it,'” Amoa later said. “That was the last time I saw Staff Sergeant Tia'i.”

Three weeks later, Sergeant Tia'i was a day away from going home on leave when a bomb exploded under his vehicle, killing him.

Best selling Samoan novelist Sia Figiel was at Pago Pago International Airport the day Sergeant Tia'i made it home in a Star Spangled banner draped casket.

“You know one of the things that distinguishes us Samoans is our loud voices. You can hear us talking a long way off,” she told ISLANDS BUSINESS.

“As that casket came out ,you could not hear a single voice anywhere.”

She wrote a poem, “A Lament in Time of War”, which was published by a local newspaper. It sparked controversy in the American Pacific territory.

“O how sad, how terribly sad this night is
“At Pago Pago International Airport
“Home of teary eyes
“On stoic silences
“Broken by the sound of police sirens
“Military boots stomping
“A trail of tears.”

Iraq's ripples are running across the South Pacific, even to families in New Zealand through their island connections. Some of the dead American Samoans were in fact independent Samoans. Soldiers from the Northern Marianas, Guam and the Federated States of Micronesia have also died with United States forces. Six Fijians have died in combat serving with the British Army in Iraq.

With a population of around 58,000, American Samoa has seen seven killed in Iraq and at least 30 wounded.

Nationally, around five soldiers have died for every one million Americans. In American Samoa, the rate is over 80 per million and the next nearest state is Vermont at 16 per million.

American Samoa Democratic Congressman Faleomavaega Eni is concerned “about where we are going with this war.”

“Six times I have had to accompany the remains of our fallen soldiers back home and it is a wrenching experience for any of us,” Faleomavaega told ISLANDS BUSINESS.

“It's not a very pretty experience, other than to console and offer sympathy to families.”

The United States took control of Eastern Samoa in 1900 and by a treaty it became a United States Navy station. Many Samoans served in the Marines or as sailors and created a deep service tradition.

With only a few jobs, either in government or in the fish canneries in Pago Pago, the military offered employment. The military paid for college education.

“(The reserves) were an opportunity to make some extra income for the family and benefits from the military. The idea of a war wasn't ever seriously on anybody's mind,” Faleomavaega says.

But it was the nature of Samoan people to fight. “One of the misconceptions many Europeans had about Polynesians was that we were passive, sit under a coconut tree strumming ukuleles. (Samoa) was a very warrior-oriented society, very similar to our cousins the Maori in New Zealand.”

One of the reasons Samoans are dying faster is a passion for the infantry and special forces. “They are gung-ho, they like that kind of stuff. Anything that gets them into the frontline.”

He admitted that many of the soldiers who had little education and unable to make the officer corps found themselves as frontline grunts.

That was changing; five American Samoans are currently in the military academies, including West Point.

Late last year, the Pentagon called up 200 reserves, prompting American Samoa Governor Togiola Tulafono to ask them to reconsider the decision, saying it would have a tremendous social and economic impact on the territory. “But, they said no. American Samoa too must sacrifice, they told me,” the governor said.

Faleomavaega said he did not agree with the governor.

“All the other states and territories were under the same constraints and difficulties and American Samoa should not expect special treatment.

“You faced up to the music; that was the expectation of the family, the village, the tribe. It was better to come back dead with honour than to hear you had run. We would never want others to say these Samoans are a bunch of cowards; they want their mama's boys back home. That will never happen to a Samoan.”

Faleomavaega said there was no anti-war feeling in Pago Pago.

“It's a very strong tradition, everybody prays for the soldiers that they come home. The orders come from the national government and our soldiers fight for the government and that is our duty and responsibility. We would never want to give the impression that our soldiers are afraid to fight.”

Veteran Pago Pago journalist Monica Miller, who is from independent Samoa, agreed. “You don't hear anybody making calls for the soldiers to come back home, or questioning why we are sending the soldiers to Iraq. There's never been that kind of discussions here.

“That is the main employment for the kids that don't get a government job or land a scholarship. A lot of them go into the service.”

Figiel, 38, who won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for her book, Where We Once Belonged, which was published first in New Zealand, is currently teaching in Pago Pago ahead of a teaching post at the University of the South Pacific in Suva.

She grew up in Apia, the daughter of retired soldier Stanislaus Figiel, a veteran of three wars.
“Like any other military family, we grew up under a military code of conduct,” she says.

Now involved in education, she says only a few American Samoan students achieve the necessary scores to get scholarships for further schooling in the United States. The military was often the only option.

“The military puts them straight to work which is a better option than staying at home or possibly working at the canneries-straight out of high school,” she says.

But it was too simplistic to say the soldiers were poorly educated. Some were educators themselves, had master's degrees and were medical doctors and police captains.

Her poem sparked debate as the island felt “utter grief” over the soldiers' deaths.
“My question is the silence from Washington. Why is there no further comment from DC? Why is it that they are not directly addressing American Samoa now?

“Do they really have to wait until another casket returns home in order for them to make their presence?”

As an artist and writer, she saw her duty to stop the war, to bring the reservists home.
She fears Iraq will be another Vietnam, recalling that her father, who fought there, first saw her when she was nine months old.

“It is the mothers, fathers and children left behind who are suffering from this war.

“I see that when I walk into the classrooms. You can tell the kids whose parents are in Iraq by the emptiness in their faces as if a part of them is not even there.”

Figiel says there will be no anti-war protests in Pago Pago. “It would be ludicrous-inconceivable for there to be protests here. I think American Samoans are too loyal, too respectful of their relationship with the United States to ever bring shame,” she said.

Her poem prompted a counter poem from a Samoan at the United States Military Academy at West Point, David Rotorua Louisiale Kava. Entitled “Don't Cry for me Sia Figiel,” he urged her to “stop scaring our parents and our relatives at home. Above all, don't make it sound as if we are complaining, bringing shame to American Samoa.”

He said they asked for the military.

“It is our lives and our love
“And if one day it must be my turn
“To make that ultimate sacrifice
“All I ask that you please bury my heart
“By the Tuasivitasi mountain at the Malaeimi Valley.”