Fort Lewis Dissenter's Hawaiian Roots

The guy at Fort Lewis who has "serious reservations" about war fighting in Iraq to the extent that he's refusing to deploy is Honolulu native Ehren Watada. Assuming that he's the sole Ehren Watada from Hawaii it looks like his dad is Bob Watada who was the executive director of the state Campaign Spending Commission in Hawaii for a long time and according to the available reports kicked a lot of ass in that capacity. He retired in 2005, but not before doing a bunch of good stuff like this:

Under Watada’s direction, nearly 100 companies were fined between 2002 and 2005 for making "false name" contributions and excessive contributions primarily to Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris and former Gov. Benjamin Cayetano. The city prosecutor and federal government took over some of Watada’s cases charging corporate executives of those companies with money laundering, making illegal campaign contributions and tax evasion. The companies participated in the scheme to boost their chances of getting government contracts, concession rights or zoning clearances.

Watada also either headed investigations, or uncovered information, that led to a long line of powerful politicians going to jail. Those include Daniel Kihano, former speaker of the House; Milton Holt, one of the most powerful state Senators of his time; Andy Mirikitani and Rene Mansho, former council members; and Marshall Ige, a former legislator who served in the House and Senate for 16 years. While in the past all politicians involved in the campaign "pay to play" scheme were Democrats, most recently Watada helped secure a federal case against Republican candidate for Congress and Lieutenant Governor, Dalton Tanonaka.

His son Ehren may have inherited some of that social conscience. Ehren's holding a press conference today -hopefully to detail his reasons for objecting to deployment- and until then there isn't a lot out there on his motivations for doing so. Ehren Watada attended Hawaii Pacific University and graduated in 2003 at which time he enlisted in the military for what looks like a three-year active duty hitch. Damn, so close! He's trying to resign, but the AP reports that he likely won't be allowed to and could be court martialed if he refuses deployment.