Case checks up on Hawai'i-based troops

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

About 100 Hawai'i National Guard soldiers are in Kuwait, additional soldiers were on their way yesterday, and most of the 29th Separate Infantry Brigade leaves for the country this week, Guard officials said.

Case

"They have been going out in increments over the last couple days," U.S. Rep Ed Case, D-Hawai'i, said yesterday.

Soldiers of the 29th Brigade Combat Team are expected to pass through Camp Arifjan, south of Kuwait City, to pick up armored vehicles before heading to Camp Virginia, a sprawling, sandy base with row upon row of tents. Then they will go north by convoy into Iraq.

Case visited for two days with some of the approximately 2,200 Hawai'i-based soldiers who just completed less than two weeks of training at Fort Polk, La. He saw some of them off yesterday as they left on a flight from Alexandria, La.

"It looks like their training was good," Case said. "They've been what is referred to in the trade as validated in Fort Polk, which I guess is a way of saying they've passed their final report card and are deemed ready to go."

Case decided to visit the Hawai'i troops after receiving some reports that they had not received adequate training and equipment during two months of training at Fort Bliss in Texas for the yearlong mission in the Baghdad and Balad areas of Iraq.

"From what I can see ... they have the equipment that they were supposed to have been issued," Case said. Among those items was cold-weather gear. Another concern was whether the Hawai'i soldiers' vehicles would be armored.

"Their vehicles are arriving in Kuwait and will be armored from every indication," Case said by phone from Washington.

Case said as far as he could see, morale was excellent, and the soldiers are anxious to get into Iraq and start their mission — and count down to when they can return home.

The soldiers are expected to be in Kuwait up to several weeks. Camp Virginia is made up of treeless, practically flat stretches of desert and cloth tents with plywood floors that sleep up to 70 soldiers.

The camp has a cafeteria-style dining facility, small base exchange, Internet cafe with 31 computers, barbershop, snack and gift shops, weight room tent, and recreation tent with pingpong tables, paperbacks and TVs.

Up to three days are likely to be spent at Udairi Training Range, where final live-fire training takes place with small arms, Humvee-mounted machine guns and anti-tank rockets.

Case said the Hawai'i soldiers will begin two weeks of "rest and recuperation" leave starting 90 days out. The citizen soldiers whom the congressmen met included twins from Kalihi and a soldier whose 9-month-old is being taken care of by her husband.

"This deployment is not a bunch of 18- to 20-year-olds," he said. "This deployment is 18 to 60, basically — 58, I think, is the upper limit for Hawai'i."

But he said they are ready. "I think what's amazing is to see them jelling as a team and hanging together," he said. "The overall spirit is good."

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