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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, June 30, 2003

Briefs

Advertiser Staff

ARMY

July 4 festivities at Schofield Barracks

Schofield Barracks will host the 32nd annual Fourth of July Spectacular Friday at Sills Field.

There will be a 5K Fun Run at 9 a.m., followed by a Children's 1-mile Fun Run at 10 a.m. Entertainment will be provided by The Down Boys, and Tino and the Rhythm Klub, beginning at 4:35 p.m. The fireworks show will begin at 8:15 p.m. Admission is free and the public is invited.

The 25th Infantry Division (Light) also will recognize the more than 250 Schofield Barracks soldiers who have deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The event will feature Maj. Gen. Eric T. Olson, commander of the 25th Division, recognizing the soldiers at 7 p.m. on Sills Field before the fireworks show.


NAVY

Chung-Hoon will be home-ported here

The office of Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, received word from the Navy that the new guided missile destroyer Chung-Hoon will be homeported at Pearl Harbor on April 5, 2004.

The $1 billion Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyer is named after Rear Adm. Gordon Paiea Chung-Hoon, who was born in Honolulu in 1910 and died in 1979.

Chung-Hoon received the Navy Cross for his courage and leadership following a kamikaze attack on his ship, the USS Sigsbee, in 1945.

The Chung-Hoon, christened in January in Pascagoula, Miss., is expected to bring 22 officers, 293 enlisted personnel, families and $17 million in salaries to Hawai'i.

Another new destroyer, the USS Chafee, also will be homeported at Pearl Harbor sometime after its commissioning in October in Newport, R.I.


Destroyer O'Kane docked in Sri Lanka

The Pearl Harbor-based destroyer O'Kane recently docked in Sri Lanka. The U.S. Embassy called it a "routine visit."

Since the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels signed a cease-fire in February 2002, U.S. Navy warships began calling on the island nation's capital of Colombo again after a break of eight years.

The O'Kane and its crew of 350 is the third U.S. ship to visit Colombo since the cease-fire.


PACIFIC COMMAND

Chance of North Korea war low, Fargo says

War with North Korea is unlikely, Adm. Thomas Fargo, the head of U.S. Pacific Command, told Congress on Thursday.

Fargo said his command is "keenly focused on the Korean Peninsula, where, although I believe the likelihood of war is low, the stakes would be very high if war occurred, and even higher if North Korea continues to pursue a nuclear capability."

The U.S. military is pursuing a worldwide reorganization of forces, and the Korea Times reported that Lt. Gen. Charles Campbell, commander of the 8th Army, said the number of U.S. troops in Korea will be reduced.

Seoul and Washington had agreed to move the U.S. Yongsan garrison in Seoul and withdraw the 2nd Infantry Division from the border of North Korea.