Ma'ili sisters in arms reunite
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer
For most of their young lives, Shanelle Nuuanu and her identical twin sister Shirelle Nuuanu — younger by one minute — had never been apart for longer than a month.
Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser
Then in January, Shirelle was sent to Iraq. A year, a war, and 6,000 miles had separated them ever since. When the 23-year-old sisters from Ma'ili were reunited two weeks ago, they knew it would be brief.
Identical twins Shirelle, left, and Shanelle Nuuanu, of Ma'ili, are together again, but not for long as duty in Iraq will again separate them.
"We've just been celebrating everything while we can," Shanelle said yesterday.
They likely talked a lot about life in the military in Iraq.
Shirelle, a sergeant in the Army Reserve, returns to Iraq tomorrow, where she has been a heavy equipment wheel mechanic since two months before the war began. Shanelle, a specialist in the Army Reserve, is preparing to deploy to Iraq sometime after the holidays.
Although there's a chance the two may briefly be in the Middle East at the same time, Shirelle expects to be heading home for good from south of Baghdad around the same time her sister arrives.
"Maybe in another year we will be able to get back together again," Shanelle said yesterday at Fort Shafter Flats, where Shirelle — now the seasoned soldier — advised members of the 411th what to expect when they get to Iraq.
Shirelle and Shanelle, who used to switch classes in high school because no one could tell them apart, joined the Army Reserve together in Hawai'i in 1998.
But in 2001 Shirelle landed a job making microchip wafers for the Intel Corporation in Oregon. There, she was assigned to the 671st Engineer Group in Portland.
Shanelle, a military land surveyor and a civilian respiratory assistant at The Queen's Medical Center, remains assigned to her sister's old unit, the 411th Engineer Battalion in Hawai'i.
Because Shirelle missed her family and sister, she took a return flight to Hawai'i every month from Oregon. But after the visit last Christmas, her unit was deployed to Iraq on Jan. 22.
Since then, she has dodged an ambush, survived 135-degree temperatures in "full battle rattle" (full armor dress), and seen her best friend die.
"He was 19," she said, pointing to a silver bracelet she wears bearing the name, Spc. Brandon S. Tobler. "He was the first person I met in Oregon when I went into the unit."
Tobler was killed in a convoy accident on the night of March 22 — three days after the war began, she said.
"Iraq was everything I thought it would be — and worse," she said. "During the war, for my first five months, it was hell. We dug holes in the sand for our own latrines. You'd do it right in the middle of the road. And there were no showers. You used water bottles. I ate MREs every single day for breakfast lunch and dinner.
"But this is what I joined the Reserves to do. I'm proud of it, actually. I'm proud of what I've done for my country."
These days, things have gotten downright luxurious, she said. The tents are air-conditioned. The showers are wet. There's electricity — usually. There's even a military Burger King.
But even though the major combat phase of the war is technically over, it's no place to let down your guard, she told her sister.
"It is scary," she said. "Really scary. Because every day there are explosions and soldiers are dying. There are bombs going back and forth. You can see them. People are going, 'Oh, look at that!' And one day one will just land in our area."
Soldiers who become complacent do so at their own peril, but "you're safe over there if you don't get careless," she said.
Her best advice: Train hard and be vigilant at all times. That, and eat plenty of ice cream in Kuwait.
"You'll be going through Kuwait first," Shirelle told Shanelle. "And there they have Pizza Hut, Subway, and places like that. The ice cream is good. When I was in Kuwait, it was like the best thing ever."
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.
