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Title: Hawaiian Korean War Veteran William Castro Shares Untold Stories of Young Soldiers

United States, 9th Sep 2026 - At eighteen years old, William Castro left the Big Island of Hawaii with a group of young men who had grown up surrounded by the ocean, family, and the traditions of island life. Within months, they would find themselves fighting on the frozen mountains of Korea.That journey is at the heart of Castro's new memoir, From Paradise to Hell: Tales of a Group of Boys Who Became Men and One A Giant Under Fire, a firsthand account of friendship, military service, sacrifice, and survival during the Korean War.When the Korean War erupted in 1950, the conflict quickly became personal for communities across Hawaii as casualties from Hawaii's own military units began returning home. Castro and other young men from across the islands made the decision to enlist and serve. Most were teenagers, and some had barely begun adulthood.Among them was Leroy Kauhini, a seventeen-year-old from Oahu whose story becomes one of the book's most powerful threads. Too young to sign his own enlistment papers, Leroy needed his mother's permission before joining the group.Together, the young recruits traveled from Hawaii to Japan and eventually into South Korea, where the war they had heard about in newspapers and on the radio became a terrifying reality. Castro recalls arriving in a country devastated by conflict and encountering civilians fleeing the fighting before being sent toward the front.The young soldiers were eventually assigned to the 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, and introduced to the harsh realities of frontline combat.Among the most dramatic episodes in the memoir is the battle for Hill 717, where Castro witnesses Leroy Kauhini advancing through intense enemy fire. The battle becomes a defining moment - not only in the war, but in Castro's und...

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