Families get ready for Guard deployment
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Hawai'i National Guard soldiers got a little down time with their families yesterday, a bit of a breather before Company C, 193rd Aviation heads out to the Middle East later this month.
Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser
For the next year, the Chinook helicopter unit — with about 200 of Hawai'i's citizens — will ferry soldiers and supplies across hostile territory and provide combat support in Iraq.
Spc. Ricky Bell of Kapolei plays with his 7-month-old daughter, Alena Sirin-Bell, at the lu'au for the Hawaii Army National Guard at Wheeler Army Airfield.
Since the Guardsmen and women were taken out of their civilian jobs across the state and placed on full-time military duty in January, they've worked long, hard hours preparing for the trip, with little off-duty time for anything beyond sleep.
Yesterday, the Guard threw Company C families a lu'au, which included long tables decorated with orchids and pineapples and stretching the length of a hangar at Wheeler Army Airfield, and inflatable bouncers for the children near the hangar doors. A band, made up of Company C Guard soldiers, warmed up as Capt. Joe Laurel, company commander, stood next to one of the two remaining CH-47 Chinook helicopters and discussed the deployment.
"It's been a challenging mobilization period," he said. "But the company is over the hump."
Most of Company C's Chinooks have been shipped out to the Middle East, so flying time is down. The company has one more major exercise this week: Its soldiers will learn, under realistic conditions, to protect their ground convoy across Iraq should it come under fire.
"Real bullets, real vehicles — the culmination of a lot of the training we've been through to date," Laurel said.
People and organizations interested in assisting the families of the Guard's Company C, 193rd Aviation may contact Leilani Kerr at Kerrlei003@hawaii.rr.com. Organizations wishing to adopt a deploying platoon in Company C or any other Guard, Reserve or active-duty unit may contact George Vickers at vickersg001@hawaii.rr.com.
But the primary focus of the next couple of weeks, Laurel said, will be the soldiers' families.
How to help the families
"The National Guard has ponied up with an aircraft and flown some of them over here from the Neighbor Islands," Laurel said. Families of some Ohio soldiers who have been training and will deploy with the Hawai'i Guard soldiers also are flying in over the next weeks, he said.
In addition to spending time with the soldiers, the next weeks will be a time for family members to solidify the company's Family Readiness Group, an organization that will keep the families informed during the company's absence.
Leilani Kerr, wife of the company's executive officer, 1st Lt. Chris Kerr, said the Family Readiness Group has been meeting in small gatherings since January. The information passed on is extremely helpful for families of soldiers who were part-timers and don't fully understand the military benefits available to them now that the spouses are on full-time active duty.
The first half-hour of the meetings are business, she said. Trying to figure out how to get money so the families can get together several times during the yearlong deployment has been a primary concern, and one that hasn't been worked out yet. The second part of each meeting is talk-story time.
"We vent to each other," she said. "It makes it feel like a load has been taken off. We share things and support each other."
The shopping lists the soldiers brought home for the deployment prompted interesting discussions.
"They had some really weird things on those lists," she said. "Like panty liners. Why do they need panty liners? Well, to put in their helmets to absorb the sweat."
Leilani's activities with the FSG won't stop her from snatching her husband away from work and taking him to some quiet place in the coming days, where he can spend time with her and the couple's four children.
Esther, 7, and Zachary, 5, don't seem to fully understand what is going on with their father, she said. The older two children, Titus, 9, and Micah, 10, ask a lot of questions.
"Like: What if Daddy gets killed in the war?" Leilani said. Esther, who stood at her mother's knee, made a noise in a singsong voice. Her mother kept talking.
The couple tell the children that Daddy has been working so hard these past weeks so that he will be very well trained to survive the deployment, she said.
"We reinforce our faith in God and say Daddy will be OK, and he'll be protected," she said.
Esther looked up. She asked her question in a tiny voice: "But how do you know?"
But she stepped away before Leilani had a chance to answer, and she moved toward her father and climbed into his arms.
Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.
