Isle Marines in Japan
receive orders for Iraq

Kaneohe units now on Okinawa
will ship out by the week’s end

Two Kaneohe Bay units with nearly 1,000 Marines will be part of the USS Essex Amphibious Readiness Group for at least a seven-month Middle East deployment to support operations in Iraq.

The units are currently preparing for the deployment in Okinawa.

Earlier this month, it was believed that the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit might have been headed to Afghanistan.

On Aug. 10, Col. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is returning to its home station at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina from Afghanistan, had said that it was being replaced by the 31st MEU.

However, the Marine Corps base at Camp Hansen in Okinawa, in a release this weekend, said the 31st MEU, made up of aviation, ground combat and combat service, "has received deployment orders to the Central Command area of responsibility to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. For operational reasons, specific dates for troop movements are not releasable."

A Pacific Fleet spokesman said the 2,000-member 31st MEU will be loaded on the amphibious assault ships USS Essex, USS Juneau and USS Harpers Ferry. They are expected to leave Okinawa by the end of the week.

The main ground combat unit of the 31st MEU is the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, with more than 900 Marines who left Hawaii July 3 on a scheduled seven-month deployment to Okinawa.

Also part of the 31st MEU are the 70 Marines and six CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters from Kaneohe's Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463. The unit left Kaneohe in April and is assigned to Okinawa's Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 265, the aviation element of the 31st MEU.

The Kaneohe aviators and air crews were supposed to be in Okinawa for only seven months.

The statement this weekend noted, "While it is not possible to provide a specific date for the unit's return, typical Marine deployments last from four to seven months."

Another 1,000 Kaneohe Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, will leave at the end of this month for a live-fire exercise at Twenty-nine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Southern California, leaving only one battalion at the Windward Oahu base.

There are more than 4,500 Schofield Barracks soldiers in Iraq. Also in Iraq are 300 Army reservists from the Hawaii-based 411th Combat Engineer Battalion; 200 Hawaii Army National Guard aviators and air crew members from Charlie Company, 193rd Aviation, with the 1st Infantry Division; and 200 members of Kaneohe's 3rd Radio Battalion. More than 2,000 soldiers from Hawaii's 29th Infantry Brigade reported for active duty last Monday in anticipation of a year-long assignment in Iraq beginning in February.

In Afghanistan are more than 5,500 Schofield Barracks soldiers and more than 60 Hawaii Army National Guard soldiers who belong to Bravo Company, 193rd Aviation.

The only Pearl Harbor-based warship in the Persian Gulf is the destroyer USS Hopper, with a crew of 300 as a member of the Belleau Wood Expeditionary Strike Group.

Tail rotor blamed
in copter crash

TOKYO » The U.S. military said yesterday a tail rotor problem caused a Kaneohe-based Sea Stallion helicopter to crash earlier this month in Okinawa, and announced that flights by similar aircraft would resume, prompting a protest from the Japanese government.

The Japanese government called the resumption "extremely regrettable," saying the U.S. military had not done enough to address the question of safety.

The CH-53D Sea Stallion from Kaneohe's Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463 crashed near Futenma Air Station on Japan's southern Okinawa island Aug. 13, injuring the three crew members.

The accident reignited calls for Futenma base to be moved from a congested residential neighborhood in Ginowan city on Okinawa, which hosts a large portion of the 50,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan.

An investigation revealed a component in the helicopter's tail rotor assembly was missing, leading to a loss of control, said the United States Forces, Japan, in a statement.

It said the problem was specific to that particular helicopter. Other helicopters of the same model, CH-53D, did not pose a threat and would resume flights, it said.

Shin Ebihara, director general of the Foreign Ministry's North American Affairs Bureau, telephoned acting U.S. Ambassador to Japan Michael Mihalak to lodge a protest.

"It is extremely regrettable that the United States has resumed flights of the CH-53D without regard for the objections of the Japanese government," Ebihara was quoted as saying according to a ministry statement.

"We strongly protest ... given that neither an adequate explanation of the accident's cause nor of safety prevention measures have yet been made," he said.

Mihalak told Ebihara that all remaining CH-53D helicopters had been thoroughly checked and were considered safe for flying.

Some 1,200 demonstrators gathered Saturday at Futenma's gates to demand an "immediate closure and unconditional return" of the base, while Okinawa's governor called for a suspension of flights until more stringent safety checks were implemented.

Flights by helicopters of other model types resumed earlier this week.

Residents have long demanded that the land used for Futenma air base be returned to Okinawa.

Tokyo and Washington agreed in 1996 to move the station from Ginowan to a less populated area. A plan to relocate it to an offshore site near the city of Nago has been stalled by protests from Nago residents.