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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, March 3, 2003

Reserve showing signs of strain as more are called in

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Nicholas Meyokovich was helping out with his dad's window treatment business and was about to take the Pennsylvania state police test when he was called up.

Shane Fink, meanwhile, was on his first day at a packing plant in Oregon when the Marines put that job on hold.

"The secretary came in and said, 'Hey, you've got a phone call,' " Fink said. "It was my wife, and she was crying and had a package that had orders and plane tickets in it."

For the two Marine reservists, the detours to plans in civilian life came more than a year ago.

Both are military policemen at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i in Kane'ohe, part of a nationwide cadre of part-time troops whose military commitments have become full-time occupations for up to two years.

"It hasn't been too bad," said Meyokovich, 26, who left active duty with the Marines in August 2001. Five months later, he had been called back.

"I'm single, so I didn't really have to worry about leaving a wife or kids," he said. "I was kind of glad I got to come back and help."

The secretary of the Navy put in place a "stop-loss" order effective Jan. 15 extending the service of Marines for a year as the nation prepares for war with Iraq.

The order applies to all 173,000 active-duty Marines and 100,000 Reserve troops.

Of 216 Marine reservists working at Camp Smith and Kane'ohe Bay, 94 have been in uniform for more than a year already, officials said.

'Total Force' mix

About 168,083 reservists have been called to active duty nationwide, and the number could rise to 265,000 — the total mobilized for the first Gulf War.

The call-up has worked out for many — and most say they are proud to serve — but the continued strain put on the backup force with the ongoing war on terrorism has begun to show.

Reserve job specialties such as military police and civil affairs are being overburdened, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked for a review of the "Total Force" mix of active-duty personnel and Reserve troops.

Thought is being given to taking some critical military jobs out of the Reserves and making them active-duty functions so the same people aren't called up again and again.

"We're going to have to take a look at that," Thomas F. Hall, assistant secretary for Reserve affairs, told the American Forces Information Service. "We cannot have a situation where we call you, as a Guardsman or reservist, every year for three or four years. You won't want to stay in the Guard and Reserve, and employers might worry about employing you."

Although the number of Guard and Reserve troops mobilized from Hawai'i remains relatively small — 2 percent out of 9,639, compared with 29 percent of North Dakota's 4,870 personnel — for some it has been an enduring hardship.

About three dozen security personnel from the Hawai'i Air National Guard's 154th Security Forces Squadron were activated after Sept. 11, 2001.

"Here's the situation that these guys have been dealing with," said Hawai'i Guard spokesman Maj. Chuck Anthony. "They were activated right after Sept. 11, and then in the spring of 2002 they were sent over to the Middle East for a 90-day rotation. They were home for just a few weeks and then were sent somewhere else in Central Command."

Now they might be looking at staying longer with the possibility of war with Iraq.

"These guys are all part-timers," Anthony said. "I know it's been difficult for their families."

Anthony, who recently returned from a deployment to the Middle East, met up with a Guardsman of about 19 who graduated from high school, went into the Guard and a technical school, and then was activated.

"Here's a kid who has graduated from high school and knows no other job," Anthony said. "He really didn't know that that was in store for him."

Long deployments

The last time any Hawai'i Guard units were activated for this length of time was during the Vietnam War, when the 29th Separate Infantry Brigade served for 19 months, he said.

"We've never had an Air Guard unit activated for this long," Anthony said.

Michael Pavkovic, director of the diplomacy and military studies program at Hawai'i Pacific University, believes the operational tempo will put stress on the National Guard and Reserve "to the point that people are going to say, I don't mind signing on to do my bit, but I didn't expect to be doing it as if I were active duty all the time, or six months out of the year."

Of the Reserve Marines who have been on duty for a year or longer in Hawai'i, 60 are at Camp Smith or have been sent forward to Bahrain.

Lt. Gen. Earl B. Hailston, who oversees Marine operations for both Central and Pacific commands, moved his headquarters and nearly half his staff of 500 from Hawai'i to Bahrain about a year ago.

"That's why these folks were activated and brought on — to fill out this headquarters (in Hawai'i)," said Marine Forces Pacific spokesman Chuck Little.

At Kane'ohe Bay, the 34 Marines who are going on their second year of active duty are military police officers, systems administrators, public affairs officers, and administrative personnel.

"They do everything — every job in the military," said base spokesman Staff Sgt. Robert Carlson. "The majority here on the base are military police, though."

Fink, a 25-year-old corporal, was reactivated on Nov. 21, 2001, after serving four years in the Corps and getting out on Dec. 2, 2000.

Although he had started a new job at a packing plant, Fink realized how much he missed the Marines, "and that's about the time I got recalled," he said.

"It wasn't so easy at the beginning. I didn't know I was going to be a military police officer. (My wife) thought I was going to be going to Afghanistan. So it was real difficult for her to handle."

After his job became clear, her fear subsided. He spent a year in Okinawa, voluntarily extended his service, and came out to Hawai'i with his wife.

Meyokovich, a sergeant, said he was supposed to get out Feb. 9 after serving a year, but the stop-loss order prevented that.

"I definitely think it's a lot tougher for the Marines that do have families," he said.

The reactivated Marines get a per diem of $50 to $60 per day on top of their regular pay, he said.

"A lot of us have houses back home, and vehicles back home we're not allowed to ship out here," Meyokovich said. "So we still have to maintain all that."

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.