Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series of stories about Kauaians preparing to mobilize to Iraq, and the families they’ll leave behind. LAWA‘I — They’ll take very different routes to get there, but for the 100-plus Kaua‘i
Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series of stories about Kauaians preparing to mobilize to Iraq, and the families they’ll leave behind.
LAWA‘I — They’ll take very different routes to get there, but for the 100-plus Kaua‘i members of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 299th Infantry Regiment of the Hawaii Army National Guard, all roads lead to Iraq.
While some of the members left the island Friday bound for the Big Island’s Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) and eventually Australia for further training, a group of around 70 other citizen-soldiers leave this morning bound for PTA for two weeks of annual training.
They have been given their marching orders, know they’ll be activated the middle of next month, will leave Hawai‘i in September for their mobilization station, likely at Fort Bliss, Texas, be home for the holidays, then ship out again in early January.
By early February, they will be in Iraq, for at least a year and possibly longer.
Among those in charge of getting the citizen-soldiers ready to temporarily drop the “citizen” part of their designations is Sgt. Phillip Kamakea of Lawa‘i Highlands, the readiness noncommissioned officer for the battalion that includes units assigned to both the Kapa‘a and Hanapepe armories.
Kamakea, like many others who are making preparations to leave behind loved ones, worries about how his wife will cope in his absence. “My wife’s going to have a hard time just with the twins,” he said of wife Patti, who works as a clerk at the child development center at the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility.
Their twin daughters, Chloe and Crystal, just turned 1. Fortunately, the parents said, older siblings Amanda, 13, and Jordan, 10, help out with their younger sisters.
Normally, after they both work their day jobs, Phillip and Patti Kamakea share the at-home responsibilities. “Yeah, it’s going to be a lot of work,” said Patti Kamakea, adding that Phillip Kamakea usually handles things like paying the bills and maintaining the yard.
Patti Kamakea was “surprised” when she learned of her husband’s pending departure. “I didn’t expect it. I expected Afghanistan, but not Iraq. Afghanistan doesn’t sound as bad,” she said.
When the older children found out about the pending deployment, their reactions were predictable. “I just asked him when, for how long, stuff like that,” said Amanda Kamakea, who is “kind of” worried about her father.
Jordan Kamakea said he is “scared” for his father, and will miss going fishing with him. Coincidentally, during the time when his father is training at PTA on the Big Island, near Hilo, this weekend, Jordan Kamakea is participating in a Mustang baseball tournament in Hilo, so his father might be able to catch some of his son’s games.
Phillip Kamakea, 39, will be 40 next month, when most of the rest of his unit is activated. He is an active Guard reserve officer, meaning the Guard is his full-time job. He has been in the service for 21 years, and is eligible for retirement on the reserve side but still has to complete four more years of service to qualify for active-duty retirement benefits.
Still, he can’t start collecting benefits until he is in his late 50s, and he’ll be 54 before he makes 20 years of active duty and can retire and collect benefits.
As readiness NCO, he takes care of his troops’ pay, military education, administrative requirements and related paperwork, while combat-readiness leadership falls more with the company’s commander and first sergeant.
Kamakea tried to opt out of the Australia training (he did leave yesterday for the Big Island), saying he had too much to do to make sure the unit is ready to move out, but wasn’t able to do so, he said.
He said earlier this week he’s not worried about being ordered into Iraq, because he has too many other things on his mind preparing his unit for departure. “From now until we leave, it will be life as usual.” Next month, when the official orders come down and mobilization is official (expected around Sunday, Aug. 15), “that’s when everyone transitions from citizen to soldier.”
Of the 100-plus members of the unit, only one person, 1st Sgt. Pacifico “Pat” Quel, has seen combat duty before. He served in Vietnam. He is a good man to have in the unit, Kamakea said. “He instills training because of what he saw in Vietnam.”
Paul C. Curtis, associate editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net.
