Independence Day holds new meaning

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Sgt. Larson Miral, on duty in Iraq, won't be at his family's barbecue this Fourth of July. Family photo

He's wearing another hat: a camouflage-covered one in Iraq, where he and about 10,000 other soldiers either based in or from Hawai'i are doing their part — fighting and sometimes dying on behalf of the "independence" in Independence Day.

Miral, 39, is one of nearly 400 Hawai'i citizen soldiers with the 411th Engineer Battalion who deployed to Iraq several months ago. About 200 Hawai'i Army National Guard members of Charlie Company, 193rd Aviation, also are serving in the country. State officials announced Friday that some 2,000 members of the Army National Guard's 29th Separate Infantry Brigade have been placed on alert for Iraq or Afghanistan.

On the home front, Miral's wife, Sherri, said she'll be waving the flag a little more vigorously as she handles a job and three children ages 11, 6 and 2.

"It's not just a year," she said. "It's 18 months, because even though they tell you you're going to be a year in theater, he had to go to Schofield for three months to train and couldn't come home."

Another three months is tacked on the end for processing back home.

For the reserve families — unaccustomed to the type of deployments active-duty soldiers more frequently go on — Fourth of July is one more holiday out of many that will be missed by deployed spouses, and one more visible reminder of the dramatic change in lifestyle that's been made, but also a day whose true meaning is brought into a sharper focus.

"It'll cause us to reflect that we're here, but daddy's gone some place to help us and to help the people that are there, and that's what this is about, us trying to help somebody else," Sherri Miral, 41, said.

Sgt. Larson Miral, a 10-year Honolulu police officer, is based at Camp Victory North in Baghdad. He had been helping rewire buildings and put up new housing for soldiers, but lately he's been manning checkpoints as a military police officer in the so-called Green Zone in Baghdad.

It's his first combat deployment after serving on active duty and then joining the Reserve years ago, his wife said.

"I'm very proud of my husband, and I love what he's doing. I get (angry) at the military for sending him there," Sherri Miral said. "But I love my husband, and he signed up to do what he did."

Miral finds herself thinking not only about her husband's service, but of her father's in Vietnam.

"I remember him going off to Vietnam. When you're a kid you don't think of stuff like this," she said. "But when you are older and you have kids of your own and your husband is put in that same situation that your father was in, you have time to think — he did it for our country. Even though people don't like it, they are doing it for their country."

Sherri Miral, with her children, from top, Danrie, Allee and Cody, is observing the Fourth of July holiday without her police officer husband, who was deployed to Iraq several months ago. Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser

The 37-year-old Kalihi man, who works at a Toyota warehouse and is married and has two boys, 9 and 11, is guarding checkpoints at Camp Victory North with the 411th Engineer Battalion.

There's a post exchange, but not a lot to do outside of work, and the temperatures have been reaching 100 degrees or more at the camp, a former Saddam Hussein game reserve. His wife, Jackie, has sent him rice upon request, repeatedly.

"He's doing OK. He says he misses us a lot and wants to come home," Jackie Baltero said.

Independence Day has taken on new meaning for her, too.

"My husband's working with the freedom of Iraq now, and it makes me really proud of him because he's protecting the country and he's doing what he thinks is right," Baltero said.

The Fourth of July "is not just the weekend now," she added. "I look at differently because my husband's more involved with it."

Miral and Baltero and their families and another 411th wife, Chris Bernardino, will be getting together at Miral's house today for a barbecue.

Bernardino, whose 48-year-old husband, Jeffrey, is a staff sergeant in Iraq, said this Fourth of July will be "very different."

"It's not the same. I'm happy I'm with friends who are going through the same thing," the 48-year-old Mililani resident said. "But it's not the same thing. I have a birthday coming up and it's not the same, either."

Chris Bernardino and her husband, a heavy equipment operator in Iraq, were rarely apart. They car-pooled, and she now catches the bus.

"Patriotism — I do celebrate our troops because they do a great thing and stand for our freedom," she said. "It's sad our husbands have to sacrifice their joy to do what they need to do to keep terrorists out of our country."

"I think they (U.S. forces) have got to give them their country back as soon as possible," Bernardino added. "I want my husband to come home as soon as he can — and then retire. It's been 23 years he's been in the reserves."

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