COURTESY MASTER SGT. JOHN KIKUYAMA
Twenty Hawaii Air National Guard communications specialists from the 201st Combat Communications Group are now in Arizona as part of the 6,000-member National Guard force patrolling the Mexican border. Among the Hawaii contingent are, from left, Senior Airman Ernesto Evangelista, Master Sgt. Ryan Kawamoto, Senior Airman Matthew Calibuso, Staff Sgt. Jansen Medeiros, Senior Airman Randy Sijalbo, Master Sgt. Derek Kawamoto and Tech. Sgt. Rodel Cabral.
|
|
Isle airmen help secure border with Mexico
Air National Guard specialists are in Arizona handling communications
Twenty Hawaii Air National Guard communications specialists are working just eight miles from the Mexican border to help federal officials stem the flow of illegal aliens.
The airmen are members of the 201st Combat Communications Group, which arrived in Arizona on Aug. 23. They are all volunteers and will be in Yuma working out of a tent city erected at a Marine Corps training base for at least 30 days.
Tech. Sgt. Makani Miller, a member of the 291st Combat Communications Squadron, normally stationed in Hilo, said in a telephone interview when his team arrived on Aug. 23, the temperature at noon was 110 degrees.
"Talking to the locals," said Miller, 33, "they told us that was actually cool weather since it can get up to 125 degrees."
Miller, who has served in both the Hawaii Army and Air National Guard for nearly 10 years, is a network communication specialist whose job is setting up computer network access to the Internet to be used by National Guard troops and border patrol agents.
"We aren't here to actually patrol the borders," said Miller who attended Pahoa High School. "Our main mission is to provide communication support to the border patrol."
That service includes providing voice and data service for Army Guard soldiers in Yuma, establishing satellite links as well as communications security, user assistance and network monitoring.
This is Miller's second deployment. He was sent to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in 2002 as part of the Hawaii Air Guard deployment that provided communications links for B-52 bombing missions into Afghanistan.
Master Sgt. John Kikuyama, a member of the 292nd Combat Communications Squadron from Maui, arrived in Arizona on Sept. 1 on a C-17 Globemaster cargo jet bringing not only a team of 15 communications operators and maintenance personnel, but also a satellite van and massive antenna.
Since then the Hawaii Air Guard unit has been working around-the-clock, working four days with a day off before switching to night operations for four days.
Kikuyama, a 1983 Lahainaluna High School graduate, is filling a position normally held by an officer and has deployed to Thailand four times, South Korea and was even sent to Louisiana last August to help with the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
Brig. Gen. Joe Chaves, who commands both the Hawaii Army National Guard and its 29th Brigade Combat Team, expects that 200 of his citizen soldiers will be sent to Arizona before the end of next summer to support Operation Jump Start.
Those soldiers will be fulfilling their required two weeks of active duty, Chaves said.
Maj. Gen. Bob Lee, state adjutant general, has said Hawaii chose to work the Arizona border because one of the 29th Brigade Combat Team's three battalions -- the 158th Infantry Regiment -- is based there.
Chaves said that besides medical and communication specialists, soldiers from Hawaii's engineer, signal and artillery units will be used.
The Hawaii Air Guard's 201st Combat Communications Group also has sent 78 of its communications specialists to Iraq and other areas in southwest Asia. All of the airmen are volunteers and will be away for 120 days.
A news release from the state Department of Defense said normally an Air National Guard group will send 30 to 35 volunteers on a 60-day rotation.
The 201st is made up of three squadrons -- the 291st Combat Communications Squadron from Hilo, the 292nd Combat Communications Squadron from Maui, and the 293rd Combat Communications Squadron from Kalaleloa on Oahu. The Hawaii airmen will install and maintain telephone and computer networks as well as high frequency radio systems, administer and monitor network security and operations and provide air traffic control.