GREGG K. KAKESAKO / GKAKESAKO@STARBULLETIN.COM
Eighteen soldiers graduated yesterday from a 39-day basic carpentry and masonry class held at Shafter Flats. Above, Army Reserve Pvt. Song Woo Hong cut a window opening on a wall for one of several shacks that 411th Engineer Battalion soldiers were required to build.
18 reservists graduate
as carpenters and masonsThe soldiers will head to Iraq to
take part in reconstruction efforts
Eighteen isle Army reservists are the military's newest carpenters and masons and will help with the reconstruction of Iraq.
Yesterday, the 18 reservists, all members of the 411th Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy), were the first to graduate from a basic carpentry and masonry Army school conducted by the Army Reserve at the 9th Regional Support Command headquarters at Shafter Flats.
Some of the 18, like Spc. Eduardo Campos-Morales, 23, volunteered to fill some of the vacancies in the 350-member Hawaii Army reserve unit that was alerted Nov. 20 and will be sent to Iraq for a year beginning in March.
Others are like Spc. Crystelynn Odani, who has been in the 411th for the past four years as an administrative specialist. She was reassigned Nov. 15 as a carpenter and a mason and had to be re-trained before the Iraq deployment.
Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Eric Castillo, one of five instructors, described Odani, 22, as being "very tough."
However, Odani has other concerns.
"I am more worried for my family since I won't be able to see them. My mom and I are very close," said Odani, who as a civilian works at Tamura Superette in Waianae. "I guess my mom's okay with it, but I know she's worried."
Campos-Morales, who has been in the Army Reserve for the past 2 1/2 years as a cook, welcomes the new assignment.
GREGG K. KAKESAKO / GKAKESAKO@STARBULLETIN.COM
Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Norman Goodell, right, checks the work of student Spc. Eduardo Campos-Morales.
"They were down on carpenters, so I volunteered because that is what is needed in Iraq," said Campos-Morales, 28.
Sgt. 1st Class Norman Goodell, who ran the course at a Shafter Flats parking lot, said the 39-day class has never been taught in Hawaii.
He has taught similar qualifications courses for Army National Guard combat engineer units in New York, Maine, Connecticut and New Hampshire.
Goodell, a member of 1st Battalion, 98th Regiment of New York's 98th Division, had less than five days after he was alerted Nov. 10 to get to the islands to run the course. His staff included five instructors, one medic and five support personnel.
The course, Goodell said, was broken into three phases: carpentry; masonry; and common combat engineer skills such as training on placing, arming and removing land mines and anti-tank mines and demolition techniques. The reservists also were taught how to string a three-tier concertina wire barricade.
To qualify, the 18 students had to master 17 carpentry and masonry skills ranging from interpreting prints and drawings to constructing concrete foundations and finally building a shed.
As part of their final exam, the students, who worked in teams, had to build three 8-by-8-foot sheds and three more 10-by-10-foot sheds, each with two doors and two windows, within a specified time, Goodell said. The sheds will become guard posts at different Army installations here.
"Everyone has to work as a team, or they will never get it done on time," Goodell said.
Despite the lack of experience in this group, which included clerks, police officers, schoolteachers, housewives and college students, Goodell said he would match his students against any in his home state of New York.
"I don't think there are carpenter helpers in New York who are as proficient with their hands as these soldiers. ... I would be confident that once these soldiers make it through the course to have them on my civilian job site."
Odani, who is more comfortable making laulaus at Tamura Superette than swinging a hammer, said she didn't have problems completing the requirements of the course, which ran seven days a week.
Pvt. 1st Class Frank Concepcion, who works as an assistant manager for a recycling company, also wasn't bothered by his reassignment as a heavy equipment mechanic in the 411th.
As for the coming deployment to Iraq, Concepcion, a reservist for the past three years, said "whatever happens, happens."
However, Campos-Morales, whose wife, Cleotilde, is an active-duty soldier with the 70th Engineers, said he is nervous since he doesn't know what to expect in Iraq and has been following all the problems soldiers there have been encountering.
"My wife is nervous for me, too," said Campos-Morales, who has been a member of the 411th for nearly three years.
The 350 Army reservists from Oahu, Maui and the Big Island will be joined by soldiers from Alaska and Guam. The 540 soldiers will spend more than a month at Schofield next month learning to work as an unit. They are led by Lt. Col. Jonathan Wung, who assumed command of the 411th Engineer Combat Battalion just after summer.
