CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
At the downtown post office yesterday, Laura Schoenrock Rebmann readied three boxes of Hawaiian luau supplies to send to her husband, Maj. Russell Rebmann, who is deployed in Baghdad with the 350th Civil Affairs Command.
To Baghdad,
with alohaAn Army reservist’s wife and
a local merchant give a luau for
isle troops a touch of home
When Army Reserve Maj. Russell Rebmann throws a luau in Baghdad for Hawaii troops, he'll have small touch of aloha from the islands -- silk flower leis and grass skirts thanks to a local merchant.
Yesterday, Laura Schoenrock Rebmann mailed boxes filled with 100 silk leis and 10 artificial hula grass skirts to her husband courtesy of Paul Kosasa, president of ABC Stores.
Russell Rebmann, a member of the Army Reserve for 18 years, has been in Iraq as a member of the Army Reserve's 350th Civil Affairs Command for the past three months.
Laura Rebmann said he was mobilized last year as a member of the Pacific Army Reserve's 322nd Civil Affairs Brigade when he moved to Hawaii.
He had been working at Fort Shafter until he was asked by his old unit in Florida -- the 350th -- whether he wanted to go to Iraq for a year.
"He left two days after our wedding on New Year's Eve," she said.
COURTESY OF THE REBMANN FAMILY
Rebmann asked his wife to send the items so that his unit could host a luau to boost morale.
After meeting several Marines and 25th Infantry Division soldiers in Baghdad, her husband wanted to do something Hawaiian as "a reminder of home," Laura Rebmann said.
"Once a month, they get together to hold morale boosting activities," she said. "In the past, it has been a southern-style barbecue with steaks.
"It gives them a chance to get together and talk about something other than war."
Laura Rebmann said she contacted Kosasa whom she has helped as a technical recruiter for the employment agency Adecco.
She said that she talks to her husband frequently and some times she knows what is happening even before it gets on the news.
"At one time I could hear the rocket attacks in the background," she said.
Maj. Rebmann lives in what the military describes as "the green zone" -- a highly protective Army compound which includes the presidential palace in central Baghdad.
"There are still rocket and mortar attacks every night," she said her husband told her. "Fortunately, they are poorly aimed."
Maj. Rebmann has to make frequent trips to the airport which she described as "as very dangerous route because it is heavily mined."
