PHOTOS BY KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM An increased demand for weapons and anti-terrorism training have kept the Puuloa practice ranges unusually busy since Sept. 11. Gunnery Sgt. Tony Thorpe, shown at Puuloa on Aug. 8, takes care of Alpha and Bravo Ranges. Those in training can fire from 200, 300, 500 and 600 yards from targets. Snipers can practice their aim from 1,000 yards.

Puuloa becomes
gun-training hub

Sailors, Marines and U.S. agents
keep the expanded range hot

---

By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

The Navy conducts the only anti-terrorism force protection training program outside San Diego at Ewa Beach one of the results of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Marine Corps Puuloa Iroquois Point's firing ranges were almost exclusively used by the Marines. That changed after the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks. Now the Navy and civilian law enforcement agencies are using it to train for increased security demands.

"Since Sept. 11, Navy security has been here every week," said Maj. John Claucherty, assistant operations officer at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. "This is because of the increased amount of training sailors now need with firearms because of the added shipboard security requirements."

The Navy was in the process of developing a course at the Ewa Beach for sailors given additional security duties before the terrorist attacks, said Lt. Cmdr. Gerry Giles, combat systems training officer for Pearl Harbor's Afloat Training Group Middle Pacific.

"Then Sept. 11 happened, and this thing just grew," said Giles.

The Navy then had to assume a greater responsibility for manning guard posts at crucial checkpoints to its bases, for conducting bomb sweeps and providing a security cadre on all of its ships, Giles said.

That meant warships in Pearl Harbor and those passing through needed a place to train and qualify its security force. Giles said basic and advanced weapons courses were developed by the Navy at Puuloa.

"At first there was nothing and now we are the only place in the Pacific that provides anti-terrorism force protection training," Giles said.

Giles estimated that at least 100 sailors a month now go through the small arms course on one of Puuloa's six ranges. There sailors tasked with the additional security duties learn to qualify with both the .45-caliber and 9 mm pistol, M-16 rifle and 12-gauge shotgun.

Wayne Holu, a civilian shooting instructor, said the Navy's newest weapons course gives "an enlisted sailor more hands-on training that he ever had before."

That is because what a sailor is now called upon to do "is far more than anything we had to do," said Holu, who was a member of the Army Reserves 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Infantry when it was called to active duty in 1968 and spent six years in uniform as a law enforcement officer.

Chief Petty Officer Joseph Desormeaux, a Navy range officer, said the training at Puuloa "has taken on more urgency since Sept. 11 and the need to ensure the sailors learn more advanced techniques to be better prepared to defend against terrorists and small boat attacks."

To meet the increased training demands, Giles said, Puuloa's Delta pistol range was upgraded using volunteers and Seabees from Pearl Harbor Naval Station's 413 Self-Help Unit. The workers reinforced several berms and built a shelter over a concrete slab to give shade to the sailors learning how to shoot. Eight firing positions were established on the range.

But the Navy and the Marine Corps aren't the only users of the Ewa Beach range.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Immigration and Naturalization Service use the ranges to ensure that their officers remain qualified to carry weapons.

PHOTOS BY KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM SSI Instructor James Perez aimed a Mossberg 500 12-gauge shotgun at Delta Range at Puuloa Rifle Range earlier this month.

Kelly Brehm, Immigration and Naturalization Service deputy area port director, said 175 of his investigators, detention and removal officers and airport inspectors must attend a refresher course every three months and requalify on their 9 mm Beretta pistols.

"The events of Sept. 11 also intensified our training needs," Brehm said, "pumping up and doubling our training to eight hours every quarter instead of four.

"If we couldn't use Puuloa," Brehm said, "we don't know where we would be."

The immigration service reinforced training program now includes classes in nondeadly force techniques such as using pepper spray and batons, concealment and how a wounded officer "can stay in the fight," he added.

"We want something more than having our officers just shooting at pieces of paper. We wanted something that it more related to the real world."

Deborah Westley, executive assistant at the federal detention center near Honolulu Airport, said although the operations of Honolulu's federal prison weren't affected by the events of Sept. 11, "there is still a need for the 229 correctional officers to attend refresher training annually."

Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Johnson, who is serving his second term as director of the training range, said the Marines have used Puuloa since 1915 for weapons qualification.

Between 1921 and 1934, Puuloa was under the control of the Navy. The Marines erected a tent camp with only a commissary store and a mess hall that could feed 150. Gasoline-powered generators provided electricity.

By the early 1940s, the Marines assumed ownership and began to build several barracks, a mess hall, armory, ammunition supply point and a headquarters building. In 1960 the first sniper school in the Marine Corps was established at Puuloa.

In 1986, a $7 million military construction project produced a new transient quarters, a new dining facility, 20 bachelor enlisted rooms and administrative offices. Marines were housed there while guarding the Naval Weapons Station. But the end of the Cold War, the closing of the Marine barracks at Pearl Harbor and the removal of nuclear weapons from the Naval Weapons Station resulted in a reduced usage of the facility.

Six firing ranges, barracks and classrooms are located on 138 acres. Claucherty said more than 4,000 Marines from Kaneohe Bay use Puuloa annually to qualify on their M-16A2 rifles and 9 mm pistols. The range also is the site of the 14-day firing cycle for the Marines' sniper school.