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Aloha E Komo Mai!

Those are the first words soldiers from Schofield Barracks on Oahu see when they arrive at Forward Operating Base Fenti, the hub of the 25th Infantry Division’s presence in Afghanistan.

Snow-capped mountains ring this large base located in eastern Afghanistan, near Jalalabad city.�� There is good coffee here and a military surplus store stocked with candy, electronic gadgets and all the equipment an infantryman might need when he gets sent to a remote outpost in the dry, rocky mountains that dot this area near the Pakistan border. The helicopter pads and runways here are busy around-the-clock; Fenti is the gateway to all of the 25th Division’s smaller camps and bases.

The 25th Division traces its roots to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.�� Schofield soldiers dug into positions along the North Shore and near Ewa Beach—where a lot of the soldiers now posted in Afghanistan own or rent homes.

These days soldiers from the 25th Division—which goes by the moniker “Tropic Lightning”—take special pride in the division’s Hawaiian heritage.�� Getting assigned to a unit at Schofield Barracks is considered one of the best postings in the U.S. Army, second, maybe, to Italy or Germany.

Eastern Afghanistan, with its freezing, snowy winters and harsh, often bone-dry summers, is nothing like Oahu; but even in the dusty corners of the 25th Division’s most isolated outposts there are tiny signs of life back home: stacks of surf magazines, posters of hula girls, photographs of the North Shore and flip flops—even in December.

Memorial plaques for the soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division are draped with necklaces made from Kukui nuts.

Care packages—some from friends, others from strangers—often arrive from Hawaii loaded with Macadamia nuts.�� In the chow hall, as they wait to choose a meal from a buffet of foods pre-cooked and frozen in Kuwait or Qatar, many soldiers admit they miss fresh fruit.

When they aren’t posted to remote mountain checkpoints, cut off from the outside world, the soldiers spend a lot of their free time in the computer labs, catching up with their friends and families on the internet.�� One officer, a captain, said he keeps an eye on the surf report.

Just before he departed Afghanistan for two weeks of leave, an infantryman sat in the computer lab at forward operating base Bostick, skyping with his parents.��Bostick is the 25th Division’s most isolated “big” base in all of Kunar province.��When every platoon is inside the wire, they number nearly 800 soldiers—but this rarely happens.

The soldier’s parents live in Minnesota; they were hoping he’d come back there for the entirety of his break.
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“Sorry mom,” he said, “it’s too cold.”

He hung up and walked outside, where he stopped to smoke a Newport with another soldier.�� As they exhaled clouds of smoke into the black night, he explained what he had told his mother.

“She pissed?” the other soldier asked.��

“Yeah, but she’ll get over it,” he replied.
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Their cigarettes glowed.�� At night the only lights at Bostick come from the hazy blink of stars and the occasional red light bouncing off a soldier’s headlamp.�� Red lights cannot be seen from afar; white headlamps and flashlights are beacons for snipers, and strictly forbidden.

“Anyway, I’m about to be in Hawaii, man!” the soldier continued, stubbing out his butt.�� “Couldn’t get any better than that.”