[ WAR IN IRAQ ]
Pearl Harbor Nearly two decades ago after the fall of Saigon, Bang Dinh tried 10 times before he was able to escape from South Vietnam by boat.
Seabee’s life
comes full circle
to Iraq war
By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comHe and his mother then spent five months in a Malaysian refugee camp before they were allowed to join his two brothers and two sisters, who had relocated to Los Angeles in 1979.
Today, Dinh, 33, a Navy reservist, faces another war on the other side of the world, and this time he may be asked to fight. "That scares me," Dinh readily admits. "It also scares my mother, who has always been against me joining the military."
Already, 230 members of his unit -- the 1st Naval Construction Regiment headquartered at Pearl Harbor -- have been sent to Kuwait as part of the military buildup for the showdown with Saddam Hussein. Some of them were activated as early as last September.
Dinh, a cash management analyst for Los Angeles County, received his orders Feb. 4, telling him to report to Pearl Harbor.
Dinh pointed out that "my family left Vietnam because of the war. My mother, who fled from the north in 1954 when the French left Vietnam, readily knows what war can do. ... She was really worried when I joined the Navy after I graduated from college. She's not really happy but she supports what I do.
"It's all a part of life," said Dinh who has been a naval reservist for nearly eight years. "You meet the challenges and you overcome them."
About 40 Seabees who live in Hawaii also have been sent to Kuwait and are busy building airfields.
Chief Petty Officer Terrie Sandlin, a housewife with a teenage daughter and son whom she left in Oregon when she was activated in December, said her Seabee construction unit is well trained.
"We're prepared," said Sandlin, who has been in uniform for 13 years, "to support the commander in chief. And as a mom I rely in my faith in God."
Lt. Mark Dietrich, the acting operations officer for the Pearl Harbor Seabee unit, added, "We're learning a lot and it is very exciting."
"This is our first real-world mission," added Dietrich, who in civilian life is Utah's state environmental engineer. "I think the Seabees are very ready. We train for these type of contingencies operations year-round."
On the other side of the island at Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay, Sgt. Gordon Scott, a military policeman, said his wife is "apprehensive" over the possibility he may be sent to Iraq to fight.
"But she's prepared for it," said Scott, who has been in the Marine Corps for nearly seven years. "I'm prepared for it. She's apprehensive about it, but she understands it's one of those things she has no control over nor do I have any control over."
Scott, 25, said his biggest concern is that he may be away from his family for an undetermined amount of time.
Hawaii military links and information