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War and
remembrance
As isle soldiers head into
harm’s way, families find
new expressions of love
John Perry III and his sister, Cherylann, are on a mission to survive the next year.
John Perry, a sergeant in the Hawaii Army National Guard's 29th Infantry Brigade, will be battling the insurgents in Iraq.
Cherylann will be battling cancer.
They made a promise before he left Schofield Barracks' D Quad yesterday to stay strong for each other.
More than 2,200 soldiers of the Army Guard's 29th Brigade, which was given a rousing 30-minute farewell send-off Saturday at Aloha Stadium, are leaving the islands this week for Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. There they will join another 1,400 soldiers from the 29th Brigade's mainland units from California and Minnesota and begin training as a combat brigade during the next three months.
"We made a promise that we will be going on a mission this next year," said Cherylann yesterday as her brother boarded one of six buses that took soldiers to Hickam Air Force Base. "We promised to hold each other close to our hearts. We made a promise to take courage from whatever God blesses us with and not be depressed, but to be strong.
"We look at it like a marathon race with our families waiting at the finish line."
To seal that pledge, Cherylann said she made two identical silver lockets at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base Exchange with their photograph etched into them. She wears one around her neck, and her brother's locket is with his dog tags.
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Sisters Sgt. Novie Widemann and Spc. Samlynn Moore, both members of the brigade's 29th Support Battalion, have similar lockets.
But theirs are two opposite sides of a tiny gold heart. Half of Widemann's "little heart" is inscribed "big sister." Moore's half says "little sister."
"If we went to war, it would only come together if one of us dies," said Widemann, 32, who also wears her locket with dog tags.
However, Moore had to watch her sister leave for war yesterday since Moore is pregnant with her third child and will not be eligible to be deployed until four months after she gives birth next month.
Since Saturday morning, three groups of about 325 each from the 29th Brigade and its subordinate unit -- the Army Reserve's 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry -- have left Oahu on chartered commercial jets.
The last group of citizen soldiers will leave on Thursday.
This will be the brigade's first wartime mission since the Vietnam War. It is expected to deploy to Iraq in late February or early March after receiving its final combat certification at Fort Polk's Joint Readiness Training Center in central Louisiana. It is the largest deployment of local soldiers since World War II.
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Yesterday, there were leis, tears and long hugs at the parade ground at Schofield's D Quad.
Some of the soldiers hope to be home on Dec. 20, when the unit will be given two weeks of Christmas leave. Other families are planning Christmas reunions in Las Vegas.
Because the soldiers had to be back at Schofield before 1:30 yesterday morning, the family of Sgt. Jon Matsuyama of Kaneohe decided to spend the night sleeping in their car at the D Quad's parking lot after attending Saturday's Aloha Stadium ceremony.
"We can't let him go without a farewell," said his mother, Sharon.
Jon Matsuyama, 32, has a brother in the Honolulu Police Department, which prompted his mother to say, "Both boys are packing guns."
As the soldiers -- dressed in their new brown, tan and green fatigues -- stood their last Schofield formation before boarding the buses, Sgt. Parrish Fitts offered a prayer of hope that all of the members of Bravo Company "come back victorious and alive."
Then, as the last of six buses left the quad's parade grounds shortly after 9 a.m., a soldier yelled out the window, "We'll be back."
Someone in the crowd quickly responded, "We'll be waiting."
