COURTESY STAFF SGT. BRADLEY RHEN / U.S. ARMY Sgt. Royline Takishita, left, 1st Lt. Michele Ivanez-McCarthy, 1st Sgt. Milo Sinatati and Sgt. Lloyd Lau, all members of the 25th Infantry Division, are spending Christmas in Afghanistan.

Isle soldiers celebrate
Christmas far from home

Telephone calls keep troops in
Afghanistan connected to families

On a typical Christmas Day, Army Sgt. Lloyd Lau would be home surrounded by family at his grandmother's home in Aiea, watching holiday football games and waiting for dinner.

And Sgt. Royline Takishita would be enjoying a Christmas Day brunch with her five brothers, five sisters and 16 nieces and nephews at her parent's home in Kailua.

"Everyone would have one 'secret Santa' since our family is so big and it's easier on everyone," she said.

Instead, both of them are spending the holidays in Afghanistan, far from home and Christmas cookies.

And for many soldiers like them, the only way to endure the great distance from loved ones was to act as if Christmas was just like any other day.

Lau, Takishita and other members of the 25th Infantry Division at Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khowst province, near the Pakistani border, began Christmas Day with a 10-kilometer run (Afghanistan is 14 1/2 hours ahead of Hawaii time). There were church services for the 1,500 service personnel at the base in northeastern Afghanistan, followed by a Christmas dinner later in the day.

One of those making the best of it was 1st Lt. Michele Ivanez-McCarthy, who would have attended Christmas Eve midnight Mass at Sacred Heart church in Waianae with her family if she had been in Hawaii.

Instead, Ivanez-McCarthy, who is assigned to the 25th Infantry Division's 125th Signal Battalion, spent Christmas talking on the phone to her husband, 1st Lt. Joseph McCarthy, who is also serving in Afghanistan, but 300 miles away.

During the three years Ivanez-McCarthy, a 1995 Waianae High School graduate, has been in the Army, her Christmas holidays have been spent in places like Georgia and South Korea.

So she knows it is best to make calls back home early. On Wednesday her family gathered at Schofield Barracks and celebrated Christmas with a 30-minute video teleconference call.

"There were eight to 10 kids," said Ivanez-McCarthy, who received her undergraduate degree from Hawaii Pacific University three years ago, "and we sang Christmas carols."

COURTESY STAFF SGT. BRADLEY RHEN / U.S. ARMY Sgt. Lloyd Lau, left, 1st Sgt. Milo Sinatati, 1st Lt. Michele Ivanez-McCarthy and Sgt. Royline Takishita, all Schofield Barracks soldiers, spruce up their quarters at Forward Operating Base Salerno in Afghanistan with a touch of aloha.

The phone was one of the few things that kept more than 175,000 soldiers now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan connected to their families during the holidays.

1st Sgt. Milo Sinatati called his family on Christmas Eve, "since I knew the lines would be tied up on Christmas Day to wish everyone a merry Christmas." He made the most of his brief call, talking to his wife, Salvina, his sons, Aaron and Timothy, and daughter, Roxanne.

Sinatati, 43, is the top enlisted soldier in Headquarters and Headquarters Battery of the Tropic Lightning's artillery section. He has been in the Army for 24 years and married for 23.

"During those 24 years, I have missed spending seven Christmas holidays with my family," the 1980 Waianae High School graduate said.

"The worst one was probably in 1996 when I was in Kuwait," Sinatati said. "Only limited travel was allowed. The only phone we could use was a couple of miles away. There was no computer access like we have now where we can write home every day."

Lau is single and has been in the Army for five years. In a phone interview he said, "I will try to take it like another day and not think of it as Christmas."

Lau, a 1995 Kaimuki High School graduate, has been home only once during his military service. "I made one last year and celebrated it with my family in Pearl City," he said.

The others were spent in Kuwait and at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. But serving in the war zone in Afghanistan does not make this Christmas any harder than past holidays.

"Just being away from the family is hard," Lau said.

Sinatati is one of the few lucky ones. He is due in the islands for a rest leave on Wednesday, and he is expecting a belated Waianae-style Christmas celebration.

"We're planning a get-together with my family and all the relatives," Sinatati said, "and just spend time together."