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Above, Cpl. Victor Avalos hugged his son, Anthony Avalos, and got a pat on the head last night at Honolulu Airport.
Kaneohe Marines
return from IraqSoldiers from the 1st Radio
Battalion reunite with familiesWounded soldier due home on Maui
Kaneohe Marine Lance Cpl. Steven Hunsaker's daughter was born while he was thousands of miles away in the Middle East.
When he saw her for the first time last night at Honolulu Airport, the happy father summed up his emotions in one word: "Alhumdulillah," which means "praise be to god."
"I wanted to come home really badly," the Arabic-speaking specialist said. "I got to come home early because of the baby."
Hunsaker is one of 240 Kaneohe Marines who were deployed to the Persian Gulf in early February. He was among the 40 who were the first to return home last night.
The Marines, members of the 1st Radio Battalion, provide communications support and conducts electronic warfare, such as jamming enemy radio signals. Though some members of the battalion were stationed in Kuwait, others, like Hunsaker, were sent to Iraq.
"Going into Baghdad was bad, I went with the first group in," he said. "We got shot at a lot, I don't like getting shot at."
But he added, "I got to stay at the palace in Baghdad for a week and a half. That was fun, I got to do a lot of translation there for a lot of people."
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Rachel Dhaliwal had a proposition for medic Honey Dhaliwal. They're already married, but they plan to have a bigger ceremony in Arizona, Rachel's home state.
"My language got a lot better while I was over there," he said.
While Baghdad was enemy territory, the Kuwait post also was stressful and dangerous.
"There was a missile which landed next to our camp before the war started, probably about 500 meters away," recalled Master Gunnery Sgt. Stanley Kennedy. "They (the Iraqis) launched quite a few Scuds ... but the Patriot (missiles) would take them out."
And while Kennedy took care of his unit, his wife, Janelle, took care of the families back home. She served as a key volunteer coordinator for the Marines. Communication among family members is key during times of war, she said.
"It's been up and down," she said. "Like when that missile landed next to my husband's camp, that was definitely a low part. "We have a prayer service every Thursday and we make sure the wives are kept informed of what's going on there."
This is the third time the Kaneohe unit has been sent to a combat zone since it was activated here in 1958. The unit was sent to Vietnam in 1965, then to the Persian Gulf in 1991.
Some Marines on this mission have been gone longer than others. Liane Laurion said her son, Sgt. Jonathan Laurion, was part of an advance group that left in October.
As a result, Laurion canceled her Christmas trip to visit her son in Hawaii and, not knowing when her son would return, rescheduled her trip for May. She found out over the weekend that her son was coming home and that both of them were to arrive here on the same day.
"I don't believe in happenstance but ... this has just worked out amazingly," she said. "I think it's an answer to a prayer."
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COURTESY PHOTO
Maui High School graduate Sgt. Felipe Omar Burgos, pictured here with wife Sherene Aki-Burgos, was wounded while fighting as a member of the 82nd Airborne in Iraq.
Wounded soldier
due home on MauiIraq combat veteran Felipe Burgos
says he misses chicken katsu plate lunches
WAILUKU >> An Army soldier from Maui who was critically wounded in the war with Iraq has recovered enough to return home for a visit later this week.
"I'm getting better slowly. I'm so glad," said Sgt. Felipe Omar Burgos, 24, a Maui High School graduate. Burgos is recovering in North Carolina from a gunshot wound that punctured a lung and stopped between the left kidney and heart.
Burgos told the Star-Bulletin in a phone interview that whenever he coughs or laughs, he feels a dull pain in his side from the slug still in him.
"For the rest of my life, I'm going to feel it," he said.
He said physicians expect him to make a full recovery in six months and to be able to continue his plan to try to join the Army's elite fighting force, the Green Berets.
Burgos, who is scheduled to arrive Thursday on the Valley Isle, will be attending Memorial Day services honoring the nation's war dead at the Veterans Cemetery in Makawao at 11 a.m. Monday.
Following the service, he is expected to attend a Memorial Day picnic scheduled at Keokea Park in Kula between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
The Republican Party of Maui has paid for the cost of travel for Burgos and his wife, Sherene. GOP official John Henry said the events are open to the public.
Henry said Jessica Lynch, of West Virginia, who was rescued from a hospital in enemy territory, and other prisoners of war were being invited to Maui, and party officials felt Maui should make a similar offer to Burgos, who was wounded in the war.
"This is one of our own guys," Henry said.
He said the Maui Marriott in Wailea has offered Burgos and his wife a two-night stay at its hotel.
Burgos was part of an 82nd Airborne Division unit assigned to secure the town of Samawah, south of Baghdad. The town was near the major supply route between a port at Kuwait and Baghdad and full of fedayeen mercenaries hired by Saddam Hussein.
Burgos said the fedayeen were pretending to surrender to lure American soldiers into ambushes and were also using ambulances as military vehicles.
"They were breaking all the rules," he said.
Burgos, who left for his assignment on Feb. 15, said he was wounded on the evening of April 4. He underwent surgery and spent a part of his recovery in Spain before being sent back to Fort Bragg, N.C.
He said the bullet ricocheted off a rib and missed his heart but was still lodged in his muscle. Burgos said no surgery is planned to remove the slug, unless it begins to move and becomes a threat to his health.
Burgos said while he is home, he hopes to spend a month with his parents, Felipe and Linda Burgos, of Pukalani, and see his friends.
He also said he was proud of his family's military tradition. His father is a retired Army sergeant, and his brother Richard, 38, works as an Army recruiter in Washington state.
Burgos said he learned some valuable lessons from the war, including the value of freedom and civil rights in the United States. He said he no longer gets so upset at anti-war protesters and recognizes that free speech is a right he is willing to defend as a soldier.
"That's what makes America beautiful," he said.
Burgos said he realized how little freedom Iraqis had when a woman was hanged in her village after she waved at American soldiers on their way to Baghdad.
When he was in Iraq, he said, he missed eating chicken katsu plate lunches from L&L Drive-Inn or made by his wife. While on Maui, Burgos hopes to do some activities he has always wanted to do but has never had the time for, such as going on a helicopter tour of Maui and attending a luau with professional entertainment.
Linda Burgos said she and her husband saw her son a couple of weeks ago in North Carolina and were looking forward to him visiting Maui, a place he has not been since he got married last June.
"I'm very excited to have him home and to know he's home and he's safe," Linda Burgos said.
Anyone wishing to contribute to the Burgoses' stay on Maui may call John Henry at 808-242-1918.
