My mother Norma was among the first war brides of WWII who were "schooled" to "serve their American husbands". At age 17, she met my father - a Hawaii-born, son of an immigrant - in Manila during American occupation and married him there. She arrived in Hawaii from the Philippines in 1946 pregnant, a stranger to this land. This tribute to my mom is a tribute to all war brides who left their homelands and their families and their cultures to begin a new life in America with their soldier husbands. My mother became a war bride, not because she fell in love with my father the soldier, but because America had filled her with dreams - a dream of education and opportunity for her children who were yet to come and a dream to send some of her new riches home to her family as they recovered from the ravages of war. What happened to her dreams? Were they fulfilled? Was her sacrifice worth it? My mother's story is like that of hundreds of thousands of women from some 50 countries who were GI brides from Asia and Europe. During commemorations of WWII, little is said about these brave women and the pain and heartache they felt leaving home for a dream or about the families they helped start in America after the war.