WEBVTT

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(speaking in foreign language)

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^- Haka is the Polynesian word for dance.

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^It's not a pure translation because

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^I think the word dance to maybe an American audience

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^would mean, oh, you're dancing to music.

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But there's no music involved here,

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there's just your hands and your body.

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So, to die, to live.

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So I'm a quarter Scottish,

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my father is half-Scottish, half-Tongan.

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On my mother's side I'm Tongan and a little bit of German.

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So I've got full-blooded Tongan cousins and

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there's always a little, you just kinda know it all,

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you're part-White.

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And then vice versa, on my Scottish side,

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we're just the brown kids. (laughs)

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I'm the only South-Pacific Islander chaplain

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in the Air Force; I bring all that history

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and all that culture with me.

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It helps others be aware of differences,

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different backgrounds, different cultures.

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Haka is a way of telling a story or of speaking truth.

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It's been done the war, but also anciently it's been done

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as a way to tell a story, almost like the Hawaiian hula.

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So it's very similar because we're all connected

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through our language and our culture.

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(speaking in foreign language)

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As the 22nd Air Refueling Wing, our mission

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is to have combat-ready airmen, and the haka

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really speaks well to being combat-ready,

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and being aware of your surroundings, situation awareness.

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As far as our obstacle here,

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I think it's important for us to be always awake and alive,

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aware of our duties.

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The haka is a spiritual dance, there's a spiritual readiness

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associated with that, but also there's a physicalness to it.

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There's social, there's mental,

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everything just kind of alive.

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(speaking in foreign language)