House Bill 2818 is still working its way through the Arizona Legislature.
Named the “Dan Ari Act,” its title references Sedona resident and Sedona Area Veteran and Community Outreach member and Vietnam veteran Daniel Aragaki.
The bill would require the governor to fly all flags in front of all state buildings at half staff within 48 hours of being notified of the death of a service member who claimed Arizona as their home or was stationed in Arizona.
“I have skin in the game now. I have a daughter who’s serving active duty in the Navy,” Arizona Rep. Quang Nguyen [R-District 1], the bill’s primary sponsor, said. “When I look at service members, they gave it all … and some of them gave the ultimate sacrifice. And the only thing a family has left is memories of their son or daughter. It would be great if our state of Arizona, could give them that last bit of dignity and the last bit of respect to the family members and say, ‘We recognize your sacrifice of giving your sons and daughters to us, and we want to recognize and that sacrifice,’ and that’s why it’s important to me.”
Nguyen said that he is optimistic about the bill passing because of its bipartisan support, adding that Gov. Katie Hobbs also supports the legislation.
“It passed out of the Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee in the House,” Nguyen said on March 25. “It went to the floor and it was passed out of the floor unanimously. And it went to military affairs and public safety in the Senate and that’s where it’s sitting right now … But in politics, I guess you kind of have to have patience.”
Born in 1946 as the son of immigrants from Okinawa who were sent to the internment camp in Jerome, Ark., during World War II. Aragaki fought in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968 and eventually relocated to Sedona in 2006.
“I was in the infantry,” Aragaki said. “199th Light Infantry Brigade. I served light weapons, which meant the 81-millimeter mortar. That was our nighttime job and our daytime job was infantry, and I was in the Tet Offensive. … Six of my brothers … and my son served in the miltary.”
Aragaki described his experience in Vietnam as stretches of “sheer boredom” followed by “times of absolute adrenaline rush and that’s all I can say.”
Locally, Aragaki was also a camera operator for the Veterans History Project for nearly five years. The group meets on the second Friday of each month at the Sedona Public Library at 10 a.m. Additionally, he is a member of SAVCO, formerly known as the Sedona Marine Corps League, with which he volunteers to put up American flags along State Route 89A for the group. He has been involved in search and rescue in the Verde Valley for the last nine years and worked as a volunteer for Friends of the Forest for 15 years.
“I was kind of disturbed a little bit about the flag being lowered to half staff for individuals, a couple of mayors passed away in Arizona, and so we lowered the flag at half staff for them,” Aragaki said. “I’m going, ‘The soldiers that lose their lives, in the line of duty, to me, [are] more important than a mayor in a county that I don’t even [live] in’ … I realize they did a lot for individuals. But to me, the American soldiers were being just forgotten about. Once I served my time, I was pretty, ‘Eh, it’s over with.’ But this started kind of eating away for a couple of years before I finally decided to have something done about it.”
