Date: Fri 11-Oct-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Ertl-service-Kurdish-evacuees

Full Text:

w/photo: Newtown Pfc Is Helping Kurdish Evacuees

A Newtown serviceman is in Guam helping Kurdish evacuees as part of Operation

Pacific Haven.

Pfc Shawn L. Ertl, assigned to C Company, First Batallion, 27th Infantry

Regiment at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, was assigned to Andersen Air Force

Base in Guam to participate in the Joint Task Force Pacific Haven, which began

on September 17. The operation's mission is to provide humanitarian assistance

and support to the processing of Kurdish nationals.

More than 2,000 Kurdish men, women and children have come through the island

on their way to asylum in the United States.

Pfc Ertl, 23, is an infantry soldier providing security for the Kurdish

evacuees. He is part of the joint operation that provided temporary housing in

an annex to Andersen known as Andersen South, a military housing complex

located five miles from the base.

Operation Pacific Haven is intended to protect the lives and enhance the

welfare of the Kurdish evacuees.

Pfc Ertl said he is proud to be part of the operation. "I believe what we are

doing is right," he said. "They helped us and now it's our turn."

Rear Admiral David L. Brewer, III, the deputy joint task force commander,

said, "We know that our military has the finest men and women in the world.

During the last several days, the world has seen proof of that. Their

unselfish and caring devotion to this effort truly makes me proud to be an

American."

Providing humanitarian aid within the Pacific Region is part of the US Pacific

Command's mission, and US forces are well-equipped and very capabale of

providing this type of assistance, he said.

Pfc Ertl, who attended Newtown High School, is the son of Klaus C. and Judith

A. Ertl.