REAL GHOST STORIES

My Stay In Hawaii

My name is Mike. I'm a US Army veteran and this is a true story of events that occurred during my time stationed in Hawaii. I am writing it to the best of my memory of the occurrences. The exact address and community name have been omitted as it is not my intention to negatively impact the housing community where these events took place. I will start with how I arrived there, to begin with.

The story begins in late 2011. I had just completed basic training at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina and was living at Fort Eustis, Virginia. My wife Nicole lived in an apartment off base while I stayed on base during the week, finishing up my military job training at the Army Aviation Logistics School on base.

I completed my training after several months and found out, to my astonishment, that the Army would be stationing me in Hawaii with the 25th Infantry Division. It was very short notice and there was little time to prepare but luckily we didn't have a lot of stuff to move at the time.

Nicole was a little stressed to move across the world on short notice, especially never having lived so far from family and home, but she was also very excited at the thought of living in Hawaii of all places, as was I. Hawaii is an exciting place to be at any age but Nicole and I were both in our early 20s and ready to hit the beach.

Preparing to leave Virginia, we shipped out our furniture, took a road trip to visit some family and say goodbye, then upon our return to Virginia we shipped our car out as well. The Army provided us each one-way airline tickets to Oahu, Hawaii and we were on our way.

It seemed too good to be true. We had only seen Hawaii in postcards and on TV or in magazines. It was a place where rich old people went or couples went for a short honeymoon. It was hard to imagine what it was going to be like when we looked out the airplane window and saw Waikiki Beach, Diamond Head volcano, and Pearl Harbor. I closed my eyes and slept.

A long flight later we finally heard the Captain call over the intercom system that we were approaching Oahu. Minutes later we arrived over Oahu during the daylight. It was unbelievable to see from the sky. The water was so clear and blue. We exited the plane.

It was a little while before Christmas and it was in the 70s. We rented a car at the airport, checked into our hotel and started to drive around exploring Pearl Harbor and the rest of the island before heading back to our hotel for the night.

I checked in at the Army base and began a long process of paperwork and immunizations, introductory briefings and so on. The process took multiple days and in a few days or a week, I was done and heading to my new unit where I was assigned.

My wife and I had found the perfect spot to call home. A decent-sized rental in the town of Kapoei, just down a short road from the beach. The neighborhood was peaceful, quiet and always well kept. All our personal property, as well as our car, arrived at the port in no time. We were soon set up and settled in.

My unit was ramping up for a deployment to Khandahar Afghanistan with lots of work and lots of training. I began spending very long days at the base and weeks at a time on another island for training drills. The long hours at the base also meant I had our only vehicle most of the day.

My wife, being alone all day, finally decided to adopt two dogs from the ASPCA which was very nearby. In fact, it was within walking distance at the time. Our dogs are both Pitbull mixes and, despite the reputation of the breed, they are more friendly and loving than most dogs I've ever known. The dogs kept my wife company and kept her busy. She began to train them and take them for long walks at the beach. It helped to pass time during the long days I worked at the base and the many weeks at a time I spent away at the training of the island.