COURTESY OF U.S. ARMY Isle reservists Sgt. Maj. Carl Sagara and Sgt. Melanie Carlos will be serving with the 322nd Civil Affairs Brigade, which was alerted yesterday for a year of combat duty, probably in Iraq.

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150 isle reservists get
call-up notification

A social worker, 57,
is among those facing
war zone deployment

Fifty-seven-year-old Army reservist Carl Sagara said he volunteered for a possible combat assignment because he felt his decades of military experience would be useful in Iraq.

"My wife asked why I was going," he said yesterday. "I told her there are a lot of young soldiers and sergeants in the unit. Some of the sergeants are little older than 20, and they have to counsel soldiers their own age. That's going to be hard. They need mentoring from soldiers who are not their own age."

Sagara is among the 150 Hawaii Army reservists who were officially placed on active duty yesterday and alerted for a possible year-long deployment in Iraq next year.

The reservists are members of the 322nd Civil Affairs Brigade, stationed at Fort Shafter Flats. Sagara is not part of that brigade, but volunteered to be one of its two sergeants major -- the highest-ranking noncommissioned soldier.

"I've been in (the military) for 33 years, and it becomes a part of your life. Also, I know I can provide more guidance and mentoring for the younger soldiers," said Sagara, who is a social worker, holds a degree in criminology and works in the state's judiciary and prison system.

Sagara has been deployed once before: 10 months in 2002 to Bosnia and Kosovo.

Other members of the 322nd Civil Affairs Brigade participated in the 1991 Gulf War and were deployed to Bosnia, Bangladesh and East Timor in 1998. But if sent to Iraq, this will be the 322nd's first deployment as one unit.

Sagara enlisted in the Army after graduating from Leilehua High School in 1965 and served for two years in Vietnam with the 22nd Finance Section (Disbursing) in Nah Trang. After leaving the Army in 1969, he joined the Hawaii Air National Guard on Kauai in 1977 and transferred to the Army Reserve six years later.

He said the 322nd is made up of attorneys, bankers, engineers, nurses, doctors and public health specialists, among other skills needed to help rebuild Iraq.

"These are the skills that are needed to rebuild a city or a nation and help it to gradually make the transition until it is strong enough to operate itself," he said.

Also among the 322nd soldiers is Kamaile Elementary School teacher Melanie Carlos, who left her job in June to prepare for a possible combat assignment in Iraq.

Carlos, a personnel sergeant in the 322nd, said she decided not to teach this year at the Leeward Oahu school where she has been working with preschool, kindergarten and first-grade students for the last four years.

"We heard that there might be a possibility that we might be activated, so I decided not to teach for a year," she said. "I asked to be placed on active duty. It was my personal way to get in the best mind-set and to prepare for a possible deployment."

Carlos plans to get married at the end of January. She does not think her unit of 150 soldiers will be mobilized and sent out of the state for several months of pre-deployment training before then. But if she is wrong, Carlos said she is ready. "Orders are orders," she said.

To date, more than 15,000 Hawaii-based active-duty and National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers are either in Iraq or Afghanistan or preparing to deploy there. That number includes more than 700 reservists called to active duty.