Posted on: Thursday, January 13, 2005
Realism prepares them for the reality of war in Iraq
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
FORT POLK, La. — For the soldiers with Hawai'i's 2nd Battalion, 299th Infantry, 24 hours in the piney woods of one of the nation's premier combat training centers brought mission successes and a sobering reminder of the reality of war in Iraq.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser With soldiers blocking entrances and exits to the town, a platoon burst into the café. The man, armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and putting up a struggle, was subdued without a shot being fired.
But in separate incidents that morning and the night before, the battalion fell victim to one of the least defensible attacks in Iraq — roadside bombs.
Seven soldiers were "killed" in the mock attacks.
It's all part of the realism that the Hawai'i National Guard soldiers are experiencing at the Joint Readiness Training Center, at a cost of $10 million to $11 million per brigade combat team.
Advertiser staff writer William Cole and photographer Richard Ambo traveled to Fort Polk, La., for a report on the Hawai'i National Guard's 29th Separate Infantry Brigade. The soldiers are undergoing combat certification at the Army's Joint Readiness Training Center before leaving for Iraq. Condolence letters will be written, and a combat memorial ceremony with upturned rifle, helmet and empty boots will be held on Saturday.
"I'm sure it's going to be sobering for the entire battalion," said Lt. Col. Kenneth Hara, 38, the commander.
The 3,600 soldiers of the 29th Separate Infantry Brigade — about 2,500 of them from Hawai'i — are at the JRTC for about two weeks before heading to Kuwait and then Iraq this month as part of the biggest combat deployment for the state's Guard and Reserve members since the Vietnam War.
Leaving in a week
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser "It (the deployment to Iraq) is getting sooner. The reality is starting to hit," said Spc. Sommer Wright, 23, from Wai'anae, who's with the 29th Support Battalion and will be part of a personnel security detachment.
"As we go into Kuwait, it will hit a lot more," she said. "Here, we're still in a training environment. We know that."
Lt. Col. Hara, whose father, before him, commanded the Koa battalion of citizen soldiers largely from the Big Island, Kaua'i and O'ahu, said the training has been time well spent.
"Going through JRTC is a must," Hara said. "This is the place you want to make any mistakes."
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser The Hawai'i brigade will take over for the 81st Brigade Combat Team out of Washington state in the Baghdad and Balad areas, and is expected to spend at least a year in Iraq.
Located on 105,000 acres in remote west-central Louisiana, Fort Polk has housed the JRTC since 1993.
Some 29 Hawai'i employers traveled to Fort Polk this week to see some of their employees as they prepare for the Iraq mission.
The 29th brigade last trained at the JRTC in 1998 with two battalions. Five of the Hawai'i unit's battalions are going through the paces.
This fiscal year, 16 brigade combat teams will train at the JRTC.
"Our (operational tempo) has increased dramatically," said Lt. Col. Jeff Hensley, operations officer for the operations group at Fort Polk.
Replications of iraq
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser Some 300 buildings have been added in 18 "towns" with alleyways and courtyards replicating features found in Iraq.
About 600 "observer controllers" with earphone headsets watch over technique and provide after-action reviews.
The soldiers train with a B-52 bomber, A-10 attack aircraft and Black Hawk and Apache helicopter support. About 250 Arabic-speaking role players and 500 local residents populate towns for exercises and demonstrate against and interact with U.S. forces.
A Fort Polkibased unit acts as the opposing force, and soldiers wear laser sensors and use blank ammunition.
The overall effect is a ratcheting-up of combat realism.
Staff Sgt. Jared Miguel, 28, a mechanic with the 29th Support Battalion and UPS employee on O'ahu, said soldiers are taking the exercise seriously.
"A lot of first-time people are going overseas. It's also scary going into combat," he said. Mostly what he's thinking about is "just getting my team home to family and friends."
Family 'holding on'
Miguel, a married father of two boys, 1 and 4, said the mobilization "has been rough, but my family is holding on. They are getting by."
Sgt. 1st Class Rafael Ped, 37, from Mililani, and Sgt. Ivan Avilla, 21, from 'Ewa Beach, met up with Dr. Barry Shitamoto from Clinical Laboratories of Hawai'i yesterday at Forward Operating Base Blackjack.
Ped works as a lab technician for the company; Avilla works in the courier department.
"You come over here and feel a little different," Shitamoto said. "You're still sad because they are leaving and putting themselves in harm's way, but you feel more dedicated to them, you feel committed to what they are doing."
Hara and his battalion of about 630 soldiers have been living and working out of Forward Operating Base Spirit, a razor-wireiringed enclave of big metal-framed white tents carved out of the forest at Fort Polk.
Outside the base entrance, "Iraqis" in robes and women in scarves milled about, with a half-dozen sheep for extra effect, and soldiers with the 2-299th stayed on the alert watching it all inside the razor wire.
The base perimeter was hit by three mortar rounds Tuesday night and three more again at 6:30 a.m. yesterday. A fire marshal calculates where the opposing force's rounds would land and detonates an artillery round simulator there.
"It's really loud. It was a perfect alarm clock this morning," said Hara, who also has three brothers in the Guard, including one who's already in Iraq with Company C, 193rd Aviation Regiment.
In just a few weeks, the Hawai'i soldiers of the 29th, with units from states including California, Oregon and Minnesota, will be performing such missions in Iraq.
They have new body armor with plates that can stop AK-47 rifle rounds, and a host of other new equipment, including new helmets.
Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, head of the Hawai'i National Guard, said yesterday that the brigade will pick up a lot of armored vehicles from the 81st Brigade.
Another 100 Humvees and 100 trucks are having armor added in Kuwait in preparation for the convoy trip north.
"No 29th soldier will move north of Kuwait in a vehicle that does not have armor," Lee said.
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
Yesterday, Company A and Company D of the "Koa" battalion were tasked with capturing a terrorist who had been spotted in a café in the fictional town of Takira.
On training grounds of Fort Polk, La., soldiers from the Hawai'i Guard's 2nd Battalion, 299th Infantry, participate in an exercise in which they prepare to investigate suspected insurgents.
As part of that realism, the 2-299 chaplain helped cope with the grief.
With the troops
The exercise will end Tuesday, and the soldiers will leave the base by next Thursday.
Three employees of Clinical Laboratories of Hawai'i gather at Fort Polk: From left, Sgt. 1st Class Rafael Ped, Dr. Barry Shitamoto, trying on a combat helmet, and Sgt. Ivan Avilla.
For the 29th, live-fire and force-on-force exercises at the JRTC are intended to validate the training that the brigade combat team received in Hawai'i and over two months between October and December at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Brig. Gen. Vern Miyagi, Hawai'i Army Guard commander, shows visiting business executives Charles Kawakami, middle, and Gary Rockwood, right, the small-arms protective insert worn by his troops.
At the JRTC, everything about the training is on a large scale.
Visiting business executive Kimberly Miyazawa, of Servco Pacific, wipes away a tear after greeting Sgt. Tony Thairathom, a Servco employee from Nu'uanu who is among Guard members on active duty.
