DISPATCHES FROM IRAQ
It's Mililani vs. Roosevelt in this village in a distant corner of Iraq

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

KHURMAL, Iraq — Sgt. Nolan Heanu graduated from Roosevelt High School, 1st Lt. John Song from Mililani.

First Lt. John Song of Mililani, left, and Sgt. Nolan Heanu serve together with the 25th Infantry Division (Light) in a mountainous region of Iraq, just across the border from Iran — about as far from home as one can get. At left is the Kurdish flag, at right the Iraqi flag. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

"I'll be saying, 'Mililani — that's Trojans. Like I said, Sir, Rough Riders, we rule,' " Heanu said. "It's the same way. He dogs me out about the Rough Riders. But he knows the deal."

Song has heard it many times.

"He always talks about how Roosevelt is better than Mililani — how Roosevelt is the Rough Riders and I'm just a Trojan," Song, 23, said. "I hear that from him every morning and get a laugh. He just seems like he's jealous he wasn't raised in Mililani. I take it like that."

That's how it goes in this northeastern Iraqi border village, where snowcapped mountains are just a few miles away, peshmerga fighters in baggy pants tote AK-47 assault rifles, lunch is flatbread, green onions and rice, and few others understand what the heck Song and Heanu are talking about.

About as far removed from Hawai'i and anything American as Schofield Barracks soldiers get in Iraq, Song and Heanu still have a little piece of home, and are passing along a bit of aloha as they go.

The two soldiers are local boys on a seven-man team operating far from bases of support to train and equip the Iraqi Border Patrol.

"It's good to have someone from Hawai'i on the team, because he understands the culture, how we were raised," said Heanu, 28, who's from Papakolea. "We eat the same foods, which everyone else doesn't like. We offer to everybody else, but they say 'uhh.' So good, more for us then."

On a recent morning in the Iraqi Border Patrol compound where the 2nd Battalion, 11th Field Artillery soldiers stay for four days at a stretch, Keahi Wai's "Promised Love" played on a CD player.

Heanu, a self-described "people person" who wears a smile everywhere he goes, has found more than one parallel to Hawaiian hospitality in Kurdish culture.

"They are like us — they'll make do for whatever they've got," said Heanu, whose pidgin still comes out more than 8,000 miles from home. "We'll always invite someone to come on in and eat. That's how these people are."

Some of the former peshmerga resistance fighters, who are now border patrol guards, have adopted Heanu as a brother.

Heanu, who has lots of family in Waiahole Valley, Papakolea and Wai'anae, already has learned about 30 Kurdish words, and tries to teach Hawaiian while picking up a new language.

"I had to take a picture with one (Kurdish) soldier. He said, 'We look like brothers,'" Heanu said. "But I get mistaken for Kurdish a lot, and especially when I greet them in their language, they start going off to me."

The two soldiers met for the first time in Sulaymaniyah, where their seven-man team was put together.

"When I first met him I read his name but didn't talk to him," Song said. "I thought he was a Hawaiian raised on the Mainland, but then he started talking pidgin and I knew he was from Hawai'i.

"I knew right off the bat, we have a better chance of getting Spam, cuttlefish — dried squid he got last time," Song added.

He has his parents send The Advertiser "and me and him will read it to see what's going on," Song said.

Americans are welcomed warmly in the Kurdish northeast, and children and adults smile broadly and give the thumbs up wherever the soldiers go.

Song, a Chaminade University criminal-justice major who was commissioned through the ROTC program at the University of Hawai'i, is of Korean descent.

"The Kurdish people think that I'm from Japan and with the Japanese army or something, which I find hilarious," Song said. "I just wave back and smile."

Song has noticed his own parallels between the Kurds and Hawai'i.

"They always want to stop and talk; people want to talk story all the time," he said.

When the soldiers stop at border-control posts, it's not unusual for Kurds to come up and offer chi, a local tea, "so we'll have a cup of tea with them," Song said.

Heanu has "Locals" slippers, and Song's say "Hawaiian."

"What I'm trying to do is get a Hawaiian flag so I can hang it in my room. It would be nice for our Humvee, too. A little one," Song said.

He also heard that Zippy's ships chili with dry ice and is wondering about that.

Heanu is a chemical equipment mechanic with 2-11, but he wants to counsel troubled teens, "so this is kind of good for me, working with people."

But he admits he misses the "surfing, the beach, the food, my family," all of which he'll have to do without for the next year.

"My family knows I'll be in the water all day, every weekend," he said about going home. "Every chance I have to surf, I'm in the water."