Florentino Angelo Barques, 52, of Kahaluu, a fisherman, hunter, farmer and an Army National Guard retiree, passed away in Castle Medical Center October 27, 2015.
He was born in Honolulu. He is survived by wife Terry Jo; daughters Nani Blades, Shantel Chang, Anuhea Menzsa, Misty O’Brien-Barques and Kalia Bush-Loo; mother Bertha; brothers Anuhea and Kalei Liptak, and Sheldon Barques; sisters Olanda Barques, Leeann Hoopili and Vernell Maffitt; and 11 grandchildren.
Services: 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Kualoa Beack Park.
Vendors in stateside commissaries will offer expanded discounts on 120 name-brand products during DeCA’s first ever Black Friday sales Nov. 27-29. Commissaries in Alaska and Hawaii are also participating but with fewer items.
These sales will be in addition to savings on current sales packages, said Tracie Russ, the Defense Commissary Agency’s director of sales. “There will be free giveaways and high-value coupons available throughout the stores bringing prices down to levels we haven’t seen in years,” Russ said.
Some of the items expected to be discounted under the “Black Friday” tag include certain health and beauty products, coffee, tea, candy, nuts, juices, pet food, noodles, lunch meat, mayonnaise, energy drinks and paper products. Also look for the Black Friday banners that are located outside of local commissaries.
See the Black Friday Weekend Sale flyer (Authentication required)
For all the information about the 2015 Hawaii National Guard Birthday Commemoration: 379 HING Ball
RSVP and make your payment at this link: https://einvitations.afit.edu/inv/anim.cfm?i=267220&k=0067450B7957
You can register to receive an email every time there is a new post. In the “Follow Blog via Email” section and press “Follow”. On the next screen, enter your email address and press ENTER. Shortly, you will receive a confirmation email to your address from WordPress.com. You acknowledge the email and you are a registered reader.
After you compete this short registration process, you get a notification email every time there is a new posting. The email has a quick teaser of the posting, along with tags that indicate how the posting relates to special topics/areas. There is a direct link to the website (Read more of this post)
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Thanks for the following new registered readers whose email address did not include a recognizable name: honu6steph, h_yescas
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently issued the 2016 Medicare Handbook. This 160 page document describes polices and procedures of the Medicare program. Beneficiaries should review this booklet for all the program benefits.
Link to the 2016 Handbook here
Ronald Lawrence Keonona Silva, 72, of Kaneohe, a retired mechanic helper with Hawaiian Tel and a Hawaii National Guard veteran, passed away on October 16, 2015. He was born in Honolulu.
He is survived by wife Sally; son Joseph “Joey” M.K.; daughters Leilani A. Silva, Meahealani D. Hunt and Marque-Lynn N.Y.S. Yagi; brother Robert L.; sister Lorna M. Gomes; 11 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Visitation: 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Hawaiian Memorial Park Mortuary. Service: 11:30 a.m. Committal service: 10 a.m. Nov. 30 at Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery. Condolences: www.hawaiianmemorialparkmortuary.com
“Kaimuki, Oahu” by Travis.Thurston – Photo shot. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons
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Historic Hawaii Foundation post articles of historical interest on their website. For old time Guard retirees, Fort Ruger was the center of Guard activities. The Army Guard maintained a large present on 22nd Avenue and on Diamond Head Road.
A May 2015 post covered the history of Kaimukī with some great photographs. It should bring back some memories of times past.
From the National Guard Association of the United States weekly e-newsletter dated November 10, 2015
The Army National Guard is slated for changes to its personnel end strength and force structure over the next few years that will see a number of units inactivated and a reduction in force of more than 15,000 soldiers as part of overall Army force-reduction plans, according to a release from the National Guard Bureau.
“This is an overall Army effort to match our force structure to the resources available,” said Lt. Gen. Timothy J. Kadavy, the director of the Army Guard, adding that the changes to come were decided upon with input from Army Guard senior leaders from throughout the 54 states, territories and the District of Columbia.
The Army Guard’s present end strength of 350,200 soldiers is scheduled to drop to 342,000 soldiers by September 2016 and then to 335,000 soldiers by September 2017. Kadavy said, “Our goal is to achieve these planned reductions through normal attrition rates as soldiers depart from the Army Guard.”
Additionally, a number of units are slated to be inactivated by the end of 2017. The units scheduled for inactivation have been identified, Kadavy said. They are two brigade combat team headquarters, six AH-64 Apache attack-reconnaissance battalions, seven battlefield surveillance brigade headquarters and numerous other units company-sized and below.
“Within the Army National Guard, we worked with the states to assess overall readiness and to right-size each in terms of the capacity they need to provide Army capability, support their governors and what the demographics in each state can support,” said Kadavy.
While some units are programmed for inactivation, others are scheduled for conversion. That transition, as well as transitions in other units scheduled to change missions sets, mean some soldiers may have to reclassify into new career fields, said Kadavy.
Those force structure changes, he added, will also affect full-time manning levels, with more than 1,700 military technician and Active Guard and Reserve positions slated to be cut throughout the Army.
Pacific Missile Range Facility in 2004
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An earlier post mentioned that the Hawaii Air National Guard deployed to Barking Sands for annual training in the 1960s and 70s. For a short period, the facility was Bonham Air Force Base. A future post will cover the Air Guard link to that name.
The following link takes you to a State Department of Transportation website covering the history of Barking Sand as an airport over the years.
Though chest pain is a common symptom, there are some less-than-obvious signs of heart disease that you should be aware of.
Medicare is health insurance for
– people 65 years of age and older
– some people with disabilities under the age of 65
– people with End-Stage Renal Disease (permanent kidney failure requiring dialysis or transplant)
Click here to learn more about Medicare and costs for 2016. At the end of the article is a link to a “Medicare and You” guide.
Gordon Lau, retired Hawaii Air National Guard loadmaster sent in the following information.
All retired National Guardsmen will likely soon be able to legally call themselves veterans.
The Senate passed legislation last week that would grant veteran status to any Guardsman or Reservist who has served 20 years. The House approved a similar provision Monday.
Sen. John Boozman, R-Arkansas, a member of the Senate Veteran’s Affairs Committee, championed the legislation in the Senate; Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minnesota, pushed the matter in the House.
Current law requires Guardsmen and Reservists to serve at least 179 days on federal active duty for other than training to be considered a veteran, regardless of how many years they have in uniform.
“It’s a travesty that Guardsmen and Reservists who have served this country honorably for 20 years or more cannot legally call themselves veterans,” said retired Maj. Gen. Gus Hargett, the NGAUS president. “They are in my eyes. They are in most Americans’ eyes. And we have never been closer to making that true in the eyes of the law.”
Changing the law has been a NGAUS priority for several years. The matter, however, always died in the Senate, where some feared providing these men and women veterans status would confer added federal benefits. The association worked in recent months to allay those fears.
The House and Senate will have to settle differences in their separate legislation, but NGAUS believes the issues are minor and can easily be reconciled.
The vast majority of people who lose weight on a diet gain the weight back within a few years — but you can beat the odds!
