HONOLULU (KHON2) – As we honor those who served this Memorial Day weekend, we take a look at the state’s Adjutant General Kenneth Hara, who will be retiring in the Fall after 40 years of service.
KHON2 asked Maj. Gen. Hara if he ever thought he would be where he was today when he began 40 years ago.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
He comes from a military family; his father and brothers all served in the military.
When MG Hara first joined the military, he said he wanted to be a helicopter pilot.
“My brother was a pilot in the National Guard, so I came in, started as private E1 at the bottom and went to officer candidate school, got commissioned as a second lieutenant and went to my dad who was Lt. Col. at the time, and I said I wanted to go to flight school and he said, ‘not yet, you’re going to the infantry first,’ I was like ‘What?’” Hara said laughing.
“So I had to wait a few years, then I went to flight school and flew helicopters but ended up coming on full time and went back to the infantry so change of track,” he recalled. “Even then I wasn’t sure if I would stay for the full career, I wasn’t even sure if I’d even make it to captain.”
He remembered being on Hawaii island when his team was told to respond to Hurricane Iniki.
“I think I was the first person to step foot on Kauai following the disaster, and they told us three days, next thing you know 30 days later and we’re still there,” he said.
MG Hara was deployed to Baghdad and was the Battalion Commander with about 900 soldiers under his command. He then went to Kuwait and Afghanistan.
He came home to Hawaii and was the dual-status commander during the 2018 Kilauea eruption and for Hurricane Lane.
“Governor Ige asked me to be the Adjutant General in 2019, and I thought, it can’t be worse than 2018,” Hara said. “So in December 2019, I became the Adjutant General and we rolled right into Covid.”
As the state’s overall incident commander, he would work nearly 18 hours a day.
“Yeah, so this office where I work every day was also my bedroom for seven months during the pandemic,” he said. “Totally committed it was really hard, a lot of sacrifice.”
Over the years he said he’s missed a lot of family time, missed a lot of weddings, and celebrations.
He said he told Governor Green prior to the Maui fires that he was thinking of retiring.
“Then the Maui wildfire hit and I said ‘Okay, I’m going to put everything on pause, I’m going to hang on, I cannot leave now.”
“Really, what prepared me was chief of the joint staff for General Darryll Wong, who was the Adjutant General at the time, so I came in 2013 as his chief and he had me not do just National Guard, but he had me help with other divisions within the department like HI-EMA, back then we had office of Homeland Security, so that experience helped me to be when I came on first as Deputy Adjutant General, and being the deputy for five years absolutely helped me get prepared for this job as the Adjutant General,” he said.
“Steve Logan, who will be the next adjutant general, he’s the deputy now, so same career track, he has great experience, he was the acting adjutant general when I was focused on the pandemic, he is definitely the perfect choice for the job,” MG Hara said.
As for what’s next…
“I plan to do nothing initially,” he said laughing. “The wife said you have to find a job, I said no I need six months off, she said ‘What?’ I said six months she’s like okay six months, so I’m hoping the first six months maybe a bit of travel we’ll see.”
“One of my biggest passions is collecting old antique bottles from Hawaii. My oldest bottle is from the 1860s and I have a huge collection through 1910 so that’s my passion, old soda bottles, old whisky’s, old gins, and old medicines.”
He said his son Justin is the next generation and has 9 years as first Lt. in the Hawaii National Guard.
MG Hara will resign on Oct. 1, from state Adjutant General, and will retire from the military on Nov. 1.