Boosting security in Hawaii.

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

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