Posted on: Monday, February 7, 2005

Guard marks time in Kuwait

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Hawai'i National Guard soldiers preparing to convoy and fly into Iraq are adjusting to Middle East desert living at three camps in Kuwait: New York, Buehring and Kuwait Naval Base, Guard officials said.

Spc. Sommer Wright, a 23-year-old Honolulu police officer with the 29th Support Battalion, said by e-mail, "It's really not what I expected."

"The walk to chow is a couple hundred meters, but when you get there, the line is really long," she said.

Dining facilities serve up hot food cafeteria-style for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

But the wait is shorter than the lines for the post exchange, phones or computers to access the Internet and e-mail.

"I have been waiting tonight for about an hour and a half to two hours just to use the Internet to check my e-mail, and I've also been waiting for at least two hours to use the phone to call home," said Wright, who is from Wai'anae.

As for features, Wright said, "Well, the only things here are tents with the exception of a few buildings, and desert. Everything here is sand, sand and more sand."

The United States runs a network of the tent camps for service members heading to and from Iraq.

Most of the 29th Brigade Combat Team soldiers at Camp Buehring, about 40 miles south of the Iraq border, live in big cloth tents with plywood flooring and overhead fluorescent lights.

Master Sgt. Craig Ikeda, 57, from Kalihi, whose son, Pfc. Jared Ikeda, also is preparing for Iraq duty, said the weather has been cool — in the 40s at night and 50s during the day.

"The sky has a haze from all the dust and all the vehicles moving around. When the wind blows, it gets worse," Craig Ikeda said in an e-mail back home. "Other than that, we have food to eat, a place to sleep and clothes to wear. What more can we ask for?"

He jokingly answers that one. "How about regular toilets? All portable toilets. No porcelain types."

One of the key tasks is marshaling trucks and Humvees and planning security for the more than 350-mile drive north.

"It will just get more crazy as the date gets closer for us to move," Ikeda added.

A battalion of 29th soldiers will remain in Kuwait and Qatar to provide security, and others will be based in the Baghdad and Balad areas of Iraq. About 2,500 Hawai'i Guard and Reserve soldiers are in Kuwait.

As the anticipation builds for the mission ahead, similar feelings are being felt back home.

"I feel the tension and stress knowing that they are going to be going into Iraq," said Eve Ikeda, Craig's wife and Jared's mom. "I'm concerned for their safety and just need to trust that God will be taking care of them and has his hand on all of them."

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