Islanders see the world in the name of duty

IN THE SKY OVER SOUTHEAST ASIA » On most days, William Prindle is a Honolulu police sergeant training recruits at the police academy. Jason Lilly works for a contractor supervising torpedo assembly for the Navy in Ewa Beach.

Brent Ishii, a 1994 Mililani High graduate, is an engineer with the Navy, while Eric Daido is a state firefighter at Honolulu Airport.

This week, though, the Hawaii Air National Guard citizen soldiers and seven others are on active duty with the Air Force, flying tens of thousands of miles in a C-17 Globemaster cargo jet from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

The wide-ranging flight will also join a historic mission to remove the last U.S. troops from Iraq, including a contingent from Hawaii’s 25th Infantry Division.

Their military role is an about-face from their civilian lives and has taken them to other Pacific isles, Japan, Thailand, Australia, Egypt, India, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bahrain, Ghana and Colombia, to name a few places.

"I think the only place we haven’t been to is Antarctica, but we’re really trying to get there," joked Master Sgt. Kurt Uchimura, 43, a loadmaster on the C-17 named Spirit of Kamehameha.

Since Monday the mission has taken the 11 Hawaii Air Guard personnel and one active-duty Air Force member from Honolulu to snowy Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage, Alaska, to pick up pallets stacked 8 feet high with more than 1,000 Army duffel bags and foot lockers.

From there the big four-engined Boeing jet flew to Yokota Air Base near Tokyo, then to Utapao Air Base, Thailand.

It’s a whirlwind journey that for seven to 10 days plucks Hawaii residents from their civilian lives, puts them in uniform and wings them around the world in a cavernous cargo plane, sometimes dropping them momentarily into a combat zone.

Friends back in Hawaii "are fascinated when you tell them you’ve been to places like that," said Tech Sgt. Steven Oshiro, a 37-year-old Aiea man and part-timer with the Air Guard who is one of four loadmasters on the mission.

This year he’s been on seven mission flights, including exercises. In the past he’s flown into Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Puerto Rico and twice to Afghanistan.

Hickam’s nine C-17s arrived in Hawaii in 2006 and are operated by the Hawaii Air National Guard and active-duty Air Force, sometimes with personnel from both. About three are "on the road" at any given time, officials said.

They have ferried wounded troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan with makeshift hospitals set up in the cargo bay, were sent to American Samoa for tsunami relief in 2009 and helped in China after an earthquake hit in 2008.

"These are the latest and greatest of the big cargo planes," said Capt. B.J. Itoman, 34, a C-17 pilot and former University of Hawaii women’s basketball standout. "They have a lot of (demand), and they like to keep the jets in the air rather than on the ground."

Her brother, Ryan, a Hawaii Air National Guard F-15 fighter pilot now training to fly the F-22 Raptor, introduced her to flying. She’s been hooked ever since. Unlike many of the other crew members, Itoman works full time for the Guard.

Daido, 48, a firefighter when he’s not on duty as a master sergeant and loadmaster with the Air Guard, said that as a result of the worldwide missions, he’s been able to climb the pyramids of Egypt and hike the Great Wall in China, been atop Mount Fuji in Japan, ridden elephants in Thailand, gotten up close to koala bears in Australia and eaten Indian food with the Indian air force — in India.

He’s flown into Afghanistan eight or nine times and Iraq 18 to 20 times.

"I’m really, really lucky. It comes with a price, but really, when I look back on it, it’s been a wonderful experience," the Mililani man said of his 22 years in the Guard.

Before the arrival of the C-17s, he flew on propeller-driven C-130 cargo carriers for 12 years with the Air Guard.

The downside has been time away from family — and the fact he has to be back at his job as a firefighter at 8 a.m. the day after he gets back to Honolulu after some marathon flying.

"I don’t want to sound corny, but honestly, I love my country and I love the Guard," Daido said. "When it comes right down to it, it’s the camaraderie. It’s these guys right here. It’s a little family we have."

The Spirit of Kamehameha crew found out Dec. 9 that they’d be flying first to Alaska to pick up the duffel bags on what was already a very busy mission.

Two crews of six pilots, four loadmasters and two crew chiefs total — all Hawaii Air Guard members with the 204th Airlift Squadron except for crew chief Staff Sgt. Robby Richardson, who is an active-duty Air Force member — are aboard the C-17 to bridge the long distances the plane must travel.

As of Thursday (Hawaii time), the cargo carrier had flown to Alaska in just over 5 1/2 hours, spent a few hours on the ground loading up the cargo that consumed 90 percent of the cargo bay, and then flew eight hours to Japan.

After an overnight stay, the crew flew eight more hours to Utapao Air Base, Thailand, for refueling, and was back in the air again an hour and a half later.

The stops as of Thursday represented less than half the distance of the trip.

The active-duty Air Force at Hickam takes about 60 percent of the missions, and the Air Guard, about 40 percent, and the Guard asks for volunteers to crew the flights, officials said.

Lilly, one of the newer pilots, said he goes on the cargo missions about eight times a year. Some of the veteran crew members said they usually fly on a mission about once every three months. All have to conduct flight training regularly in Hawaii.

Crew members say it’s not unusual to fly around the world on one mission trip.

There are downsides to the job: long hours sitting or standing in a noisy cargo plane without much to do, and some disorientation that comes from flying to multiple countries at all times of the day and night in a short span of time.

Itoman said sightseeing during layovers is tempting, "but you’ve got to balance that with the rest you need."

Crew and service members who fly more than once on a C-17 know to bring an inflatable sleeping pad that can be rolled out on the aluminum decking for a fully stretched-out snooze while other crew members watch over the aircraft.

Even with the grueling mission tempo, Capt. Brandon Chang is where he always wanted to be: in the cockpit flying a C-17.

The 2001 Aiea High School graduate enlisted in 2002 as a loadmaster, went to UH and got back from pilot training in 2009.

His dad was a flight engineer with the Hawaii Air National Guard on C-130 cargo aircraft, and he used to hang out at the squadron after school.

"I’ve always wanted to become a pilot," Chang said. "It’s been a dream since I was a kid."

Hawaii News Now video: Heading to Iraq, Tokyo rest stop