AS America prepared for war against Iraq, hundreds of military and
civilian officials within the sprawling Department of Homeland Security sprang into high gear to protect the nation from anticipated
retaliation.
Every security measure that had been in place after Sept. 11, 2001,
was beefed up. Fighters patrolled the skies in greater numbers, and more
frequently. The Coast Guard patrolled waterways and seaports with more
vessels. And as the number of active-duty soldiers deployed to the
Persian Gulf region continued to swell, so did the number of Army
National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers activated in virtually every
state to augment regular troops.
“Our very heartland is under attack, and all of us must be as
ready as possible for the next strike,” said U.S. Army, Pacific,
deputy commander MG Craig B. Whelden, at Fort Shafter, Hawaii.
“In a sense, the efforts in the United States are more complex
and uncertain than those faced by coalition forces now in the Persian
Gulf region,” he said. “We don’t know where or when the
next attack will occur.”
In Hawaii, 3,000 miles from any landmass, where support from the
U.S. mainland would take five to seven hours, commanders must always be
on guard. “This is a target-rich environment,” said COL George
Garrett, director of the office of the Joint Rear-Area Coordinator,
Hawaii. The islands are home to the headquarters of both U.S. Pacific
Command and U.S. Army Pacific, besides housing every branch of the
military in very close proximity.
After the 2001 terrorist attacks the combatant commander, USPACOM,
at Camp Smith, Hawaii, tasked USARPAC to be the executive agent for
joint rear-area coordination, that is, homeland defense in Hawaii. The
USARPAC commander thus became the JRAC, or joint rear-area coordinator.
Members of JRAC-HI, in partnership with the joint military services
present in Hawaii and local, state and federal authorities, then
developed a homeland defense preparedness plan, in the process basically
revising a plan that had been in place for use in case of war on the
Korean peninsula, Garrett said.
“When 911 hit, we received the existing plan and reduced its
scope to the Hawaiian Islands,” he said. “The networking
we’d done through our military support to civilian authorities
allowed us to jump right into the ‘run’ phase of the
Army’s ‘crawl, walk, run’ training process. Most other
states didn’t have that luxury.”
The defense plan for Hawaii includes protecting and restricting
access to military installations by reducing entry points and using
roving patrols, varying the procedures of guard forces to minimize the
predict ability of what they do, and maintaining regular contact with
local law enforcement officials to receive regular intelligence reports,
Whelden said.
Soon after it was established in October 2001, JRAC-HI identified
mission-essential vulnerable areas, MEVAs, both on and off military
installations. Local civil authorities have identified some 150 of their
own MEVAs, Whelden said.
JRAC-HI also utilizes a defense-coordinating officer for providing
military support to civil authorities following natural or man-made
disasters in Hawaii, American Samoa and neighboring islands.
The organization uses a number of tools to support its critical
mission. Through an interactive computer system called ASOCC (for area
security operations command and control), JRAC-HI personnel can monitor
the activities and developing situations of friendly “forces,”
both military and civilian, Whelden said.
At the same time, the Pacific Mobile Emergency Radio System–a
newly established, narrow-band frequency, land-mobile system–allows
first-responders to communicate over a secure line with the military and
each other. PACMERS is compatible with radio systems on aircraft and
vessels, and can accommodate as many as 149 “talk groups” on
its network, Whelden said, with some of those groups dedicated to
homeland security.
JRAC-HI boasts a round-the-clock joint intelligence-support element
and counterintelligence and law-enforcement coordination cell, and
analyzes intelligence information and disseminates it to those who need
it, via secure Internet.
JRAC-HI has also developed a multi-agency training program, with
worst possible case scenarios designed to exercise quick response,
security awareness and military support to civilian authorities, Whelden
said. To date, seven joint exercises have been conducted on the islands,
some of them involving a mock plane crash or simulated car bomb.
The focused training program also includes quick-reaction-force
exercises, key-leader discussions and “what-it” rock drills,
Garrett said.
Within 30 days of Sept. 11, 2001, JRAC-HI, through coordination
with state civil-defense authorities, also established a civilian
version of the military force-protection-condition rating system for use
in civilian communities in Hawaii. Tom Ridge, director of the Department
of Homeland Security, used the color-coded system as a model for the
national Security Alert System.
And JRAC-HI worked with local, state and federal officials to help
establish Hawaii’s FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force, in 2002, and
today feeds the JTTF intelligence information.
“What’s being done in Hawaii is a microcosm of what Ridge
faced on a national scale,” Whelden said. “Hawaii has
geographic advantages because of its isolation, affording tighter
control and access; a large military presence with a military combatant
commander, all four armed services and the Coast Guard in close
proximity; and all those forces are already accustomed to working
together and with local, state and federal agencies.
“Just as important, however, is the spirit of ohana, or
family, that helps people in Hawaii transcend normal bureaucratic and
cultural barriers,” Whelden added. “And because of the unique
circumstances in Hawaii, we’re quite possibly ahead of the national
effort in homeland security.”
RELATED ARTICLE: JRAC-HI people.
THE JRAC-HI cell is composed of some 80 Reserve soldiers–about
half of whom have been on active duty for two years as part of JRAC-HI,
said USARPAC spokesman Joe Bonfiglio.
The Reserve soldiers left a range of civilian professions as varied
as the missions they now perform, Bonfiglio said.
COL George Garrett, who is a former Honolulu police officer and
current Defense Department training manager who retired from the
military with 35 years’ service, was recalled to active duty to
become JRAC-HI’s director.
The current operations officer for the group, MAJ Ferman Cepeda, is
a high school math teacher. Linguist-interrogator SSG Cecilia
Corujo-Butler is a self-employed daycare provider and mother of three
small children. And SFC Neoma Naaktgeboren, a counterintelligence agent,
is an art-gallery manager in civilian life.–Heike Hasenauer
from Kauai i Hawaii Travel Tips http://www.kauaitips.com/boosting-security-in-hawaii/
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