Tripler Army Medical Center

Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii is the largest military hospital in the Asian and Pacific Rim region, and the only United Nations Peace Operations Institute in the United States. T ripler Army Medical Center is the headquarters of the Pacific Regional Medical Command of the armed forces administered by the United States Army in the State of Hawaii. It is the largest military hospital in the Asian and Pacific Rim region and serves a military sphere of jurisdiction that spans over 52% of the earth's surface. Located on the slopes of Moanalua Ridge overlooking the Honolulu neighborhoods of and Salt Lake, Tripler Army Medical Center's massive coral pink structure can be seen from any point in the Honolulu District.

According to the contract documents from 1944, the signature coral pink color of Tripler Army Medical center was a personal choice of General Richardson who borrowed the color and many other design elements of the complex from the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki. The Royal Hawaiian was one of the primary recreational sites for US military personnel during World War II and was also a design of the landscape architect, Robert O. Thompson.

According to Tripler spokeswoman Margaret Tippy an alternate reason for the pink paint job was supplied by retired Col. Robert B. "Woody" Wood, who was the Army Corps of Engineers area engineer when Tripler was built, and Sophie Fradsend, who had been the secretary to the chief architect of Tripler.

The architect came into Wood's office one day and said it was time to select the color for the hospital. Wood said he looked out his window at the red dirt on the then-undeveloped Moanalua Ridge and said "You've got to get it as close to that color as you can because that's the color it will be when you're through."

During a single day of operations at Tripler Army Medical Center, personnel serve an average of 1,728 meals, tend to 2,248 clinic visits and 110 emergency room visits, fill 1,193 prescriptions, complete 25,000 pathology procedures, and deliver 8 babies. On a typical day, 32 new patients are admitted as 159 beds are occupied. Of those patients, 19 go through ambulatory surgery.