3 Army reservists
returning to isles
Three local Army reservists will return from Iraq this week after spending five months in Iraq, while another handful will remain there indefinitely.
Lt. Col. Howard Sugai, spokesman for 9th Regional Support Command, said yesterday: "There are three or four other individual soldiers who volunteered for duty in Iraq. We don't know when they will return."
Sugai said the three members of the 30th Military History Detachment, commanded by Maj. Annette Hoffman, will not be affected by the Army's recent decision to extend the stay of National Guard and Reserve soldiers for three months.
Reservists can be kept on active duty for up to two years.
A message was delivered to all troops in Iraq last week clarifying that both active-duty and Reserve units will serve 12 months in the country.
The three Army reservists left in April to collect maps, photographs, video and audio recordings, artifacts and electronic media and to conduct interviews to document Army operations in the Persian Gulf.
Hoffman, the unit's commander since September, works as a business development counselor with the Honolulu Community Action Program in her civilian capacity. Hoffman, 33, has been in the Army Reserve since 1987. The other two members of her unit left jobs as security officers.
During the 1991 Gulf War, the only major island-connected Reserve element activated was Pacific Army Reserve soldiers belonging to a military police unit on Guam.
Although the Hawaii Army National Guard has no soldiers in Iraq, they were ordered to send 62 helicopter mechanics and specialists to Afghanistan. The members of the 193rd Aviation are attached to the 10th Mountain Division and are expected to be in Afghanistan through the end of the year.
Also deploying to Southwest Asia for the first time will be 7,000 soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division. There will be 3,500 Tropic Lightning soldiers serving in separate six-month rotations that are supposed to end in December.
