Allen Hoe, a Vietnam War combat medic from Hawaii, visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial ("The Wall") as Army nurses returning from Iraq were being honored. Hoe brought along some Hawaiian leis for the trauma nurses, remembering his son, Nainoa, an infantry officer killed in Mosul in 2005. As Maj. Paula Couglin walked up the path, Hoe approached her, saying, "Here, this is a special gift from me to you." Neither Allen Hoe nor Paula Couglin imagined she had an even more special gift for him, what the grieving parent called a "miracle."
