Posted on: Friday, January 7, 2005

Hawai'i Guard will arrive in Iraq after elections

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Hawai'i National Guard soldiers training for deployment to Iraq won't be sent there until after the Jan. 30 elections, a spokesman said yesterday.

Some Hawai'i soldiers had believed their deployment to Iraq might be moved up so they would be in the country at that time, but spokesman Maj. Chuck Anthony said that is not the case.

Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, head of the Hawai'i National Guard, "got word they will not be heading north until after the election," Anthony said.

The 3,600 soldiers of the Hawai'i-based 29th Separate Infantry Brigade will be headquartered out of Balad, but also will be based out of Baghdad's Green Zone and Camp Victory South near the international airport.

The 81st Brigade Combat Team, a National Guard unit out of Washington state, has been deployed to the region since last spring. A 26-year-old soldier who was killed Dec. 30 in Baghdad was the brigade's ninth fatality.

Anthony said the decision was made "to keep a unit (the 81st) that had been there the whole year in place through the election."

Hearing that the 29th won't be there for the election — as violence increases and rebels attempt to disrupt the process — is one bit of good news for families back home.

"I knew the violence had been escalating, but I also knew the 29th was not planning to be there (in Iraq) until after the election," said Eve Ikeda of Kalihi, whose 57-year-old husband, Craig, and 20-year-old son, Jared, are part of the brigade. "It's good news that they are not going in earlier. That's something I was really praying about, because things can change."

Following two months of training in Texas and New Mexico and two weeks of leave over the holidays, 29th soldiers in recent days have been arriving at Fort Polk, La., for combat certification, which begins this weekend.

The 116th Brigade Combat Team out of Idaho, a National Guard unit replacing Hawai'i's 25th Infantry Division (Light) in Iraq, went through 10 days of war games at the training center in October.

Soldiers wearing MILES gear (Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System) with sensors and firing laser beams instead of bullets went up against an "opposition force" of combat veterans in forests and mock Iraqi villages populated with some actual Iraqis, The Idaho Statesman reported.

Anthony said the training center "is a pretty high-tech environment" with infrared night-vision cameras to survey the entire battle space.

U.S. Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawai'i, has said it's vital to get "frankly, bluntly honest" assessments of combat readiness at Fort Polk.

"If they are ready, they are ready," Case said. "If they are not ready, let's re-train."

Anthony said the hard training already has been done.

"If they were prepared well enough at (Fort Bliss in Texas), they should have an easier time at Polk," he said. "The command believes they are ready."