HAWAII ARMY NATIONAL GUARD Soldiers of Hawaii Army National Guard's Charlie Company, 193rd Aviation, watch as a CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter takes off from Balad, Iraq.

Unit earns its keep
on flights at night

Aviators help ferry equipment and
troops in blackout conditions

Since arriving in Iraq eight months ago, Hawaii Army National Guard Chinook helicopter crews say they have logged many miles flying under the cover of night.

Maj. Joe Laurel, commanding officer of Charlie Company of the Hawaii Army National Guard's 193rd Aviation, said yesterday in a phone interview from Balad that many of the unit's missions have been in blackout conditions using night-vision goggles.

"It's like looking through toilet paper rolls," Laurel explained, "while flying at 200 miles per hour.

"We are always flying a low level to help mitigate folks who want to do us harm."

Chief Warrant Officer Oliver Kaloi, who piloted UH-1 Huey and AH-1 Cobra gunship helicopters in Vietnam, said Charlie Company aviators have "set all kinds of records, especially flying with night-vision goggles."

As part of the aviation task force assigned to the 1st Division, Charlie Company's 13 CH-47 Chinooks have been ferrying supplies, equipment and soldiers throughout northern Iraq.

"We also have done casualty evacuations," he said.

Since arriving in Balad, north of Baghdad, on April 14, the unit of 200 aviators, mechanics and supply specialists has had only one minor accident.

Four days after relieving another aviation unit, five Charlie Company crew members escaped injury when a sandstorm forced their Chinook to crash-land.

Chief Warrant Officer Jack Sharkey, who said he might be the oldest soldier in the Hawaii Army Guard at 62, said flying in Iraq is nothing like piloting a F-4 Phantom jet in the Vietnam War.

"The war is very different," said Sharkey, who has been in the Hawaii Army Guard for 24 years after serving on active duty in the Marine Corps for eight years.

"We're flying a lot lower here. In Vietnam we didn't fly at night.

"It's pretty stressful flying. We got used to it."

Maj. Gen. Bob Lee, who heads the Hawaii Army and Air National Guard as state adjutant general, spent this week visiting with members of Charlie Company. Yesterday, Lee said the unit "will come home on schedule" in April.

Also in Afghanistan on a year-long deployment are nearly 60 members of the 193rd Aviation's Bravo Company. They left Wheeler Army Air Field in March.