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Kaneohe Marines
expected home soon

More than 2,000 Marines and sailors of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, including more than 900 from Kaneohe, returned to Okinawa yesterday after a six-month deployment to Iraq. The 31st MEU was transported on three ships of the Sasebo, Japan-based Essex Amphibious Ready Group, which left Kuwait in February, according to the Marine Corps public affairs office.

The Kaneohe-based Marines are with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, and are expected to return to Kaneohe Bay later this month. The 31st MEU left Okinawa in September aboard the USS Essex, USS Juneau and USS Harpers Ferry. The Marines were assigned to the 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "The 31st MEU was responsible for a wide range of missions that included assistance and security for Iraq's first free elections, operations against the insurgency, civil affairs missions, Iraqi border security, training of Iraqi security forces, security of the Hadithah Dam, as well as other operations needed to further stabilize the area in support of the interim Iraqi government," according to 1st Lt. Eric Tausch, media relations officer for Marine Consolidated Public Affairs on Okinawa.

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Sgt. Richard Kalepa -- whose mother, Florence, lives in Pearl City -- was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds he suffered March 7 while serving with the 3rd Infantry Division at Camp Liberty near Baghdad.

Kalepa, 39, and a 1984 Farrington High School graduate, was wounded in his face. "It was a very scary event," Kalepa said during a phone interview.

"It was a very close call. A couple more feet and I wouldn't be here today."

A member of the 92nd Engineer Battalion in Pennsylvania as an Army reserve full technician, he was assigned to Charlie Company, 92nd Engineers, 3rd Infantry Division. His unit replaced Hawaii's 411th Engineer Battalion, which returned from Iraq March 25.

Kalepa, who has been in the military for 17 years, hopes to get assigned to his old unit -- the 411th Engineers -- where he served from 1989-97, when his current unit leaves Iraq in January.

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Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard's current senior sailor of the year -- Petty Officer Elizabeth McGee -- was named the Naval Sea Systems Command sailor of the year March 4. NAVSEA is the Navy's central activity for designing, engineering, procuring, building and maintaining U.S. naval ships and shipboard weapons and combat systems. It is the largest of the Navy's five systems commands, with a workforce of about 47,000 civilians and close to 2,000 sailors assigned to about 34 subordinate shore activities and 30 detachments.

McGee will be interviewed in June by a selection board that will pick the Vice Chief of Naval Operations Shore Sailor of the Year.

"I'm very excited to go on to represent everyone at the shipyard and the entire Naval Sea Systems Command," she said. "I was up against some really outstanding competition, so I really had no idea who would win. I was greatly surprised when my name was announced."

McGee, who coordinates the efforts of 150 sailors and 75 civilians to ensure the submarines are able to meet their operational commitments, has been Pearl Harbor Shipyard's senior sailor of the year in 2003 and was among five finalists in last year's NAVSEA Sailor of the Year competition.

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Col. Rodney O. Anderson, who served as 25th Infantry Division artillery commander, has been assigned as an assistant division commander of 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., and promoted to brigadier general. He is executive assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Moving up

» Camp Smith: Brig. Gen. Randolph Strong, director of Command, Control, Communication and Computer Systems (J-6) at the Pacific Command, will become the commanding general of the U.S Army Signal Center at Fort Gordon, Ga.

» Pearl Harbor: Capt. Douglas J. McAneny, executive assistant to the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, has been nominated for appointment as rear admiral.