Hawaii Air National Guard Senior Airman Marvin Isidro, who joined the 297th Air Traffic Control Squadron last year at age 31, will be deploying for Iraq this weekend.
9 Air Guard volunteers
gear up for deployment
The air traffic control contingent
anticipates hard, rewarding duty
About a year ago, Marvin Isidro got tired of fixing cars and started looking for something more exciting.
With his wife's blessing, the 31-year-old joined the Hawaii Air National Guard. Now, the senior airman has volunteered to join a nine-member team that leaves this weekend for Iraq, where he will help run airfield operations at an Army base.
"I was getting tired doing what I was doing," Isidro said, explaining his decision to join the Guard during a war.
"I wanted to do something different. I used to ask people who came into the shop, and who were in the military, what it was like. They seemed to like it," said the 1989 Farrington High School graduate.
Isidro returned in April from the Air Force's technical school at Kessler Air Force Base near New Orleans, where he spent four months learning to repair telephone systems.
Married for five years and with two children, Isidro said his wife has supported his decisions, including volunteering for overseas duty expected to last at least four months.
Hawaii Air National Guard Tech. Sgt. Anthony Ramirez made sure he packed two essentials for his combat tour in Iraq: flea collars for his ankles and portable hand warmers.
Maj. Mark Welch, commander of the 297th, said he cannot say where he and the eight other volunteers will be sent "to provide air traffic control and run an airfield in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom."
"Security is one of the biggest things we have trained for," said Welch, who served for 8 1/2 years in the active Air Force before joining the 297th in June 2003.
"The big emphasis has been IEDs (improvised explosive devices). That will be the primary threat."
However, Welch, 39, said the issue raised last week by Tennessee National Guard soldiers over the lack of armor for their Humvees will not be a problem for the Hawaii airmen, "since we won't be traveling that much."
It will be the third Christmas and third wedding anniversary Welch will miss. He spent 15 months in Turkey in 1996 as an Air Force field operations officer.
In March 2003, when the 297th deployed to Diego Garcia, members were required to load all their radar vans and support equipment on a C-17 jet transport and had to set up everything once they landed.
This time, the Hawaii air traffic controllers and repairmen will join mainland Air National Guard units and will use equipment already in place at an Army airfield.
Chief Master Sgt. Raymond Chang, 47, who has been in the Hawaii Air Guard since 1983 after four years in the Air Force, expects to be working 12-hour shifts.
In 1997, Chang was one of 31 Hawaii Air Guard traffic controllers who were sent to Taszar Air Base in Hungary to support the United Nations air war over Bosnia. They were then the first in the Hawaii National Guard to be called to active duty since the Vietnam War.
"We were there from July to November, and I remember how cold it was then," said Chang, a 1975 Kalani High School graduate. "This time, I am bringing extra cold-weather gear."
Airman Steve Wright, 22, decided against completing his last two graduation requirements next semester at Honolulu Community College when he volunteered.
"I felt it was my duty to go. It is what I was trained to do," said Wright, who enlisted in the Air Guard three years ago.
His mother was upset that he volunteered for this mission. His father, who served with the Air Force in the 1991 Gulf War, told Wright "to watch out and be careful."
As Tech. Sgt. Anthony Ramirez, a 1997 Campbell High School graduate, completed packing his duffel bags, he made sure there were two nonmilitary-issue items: several dozen packages of commercial hand warmers and a dog flea collar.
"That's to tie around my ankles to keep the fleas away," said Ramirez, 25.
This is Ramirez's second deployment. "We've been training pretty good. It will be the same thing, except this time it is for real."
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