801st Engineer Company, the Army Reserve unit that I was honored to be assigned to at that time, had a mission in this part of the world. Kwajalein Atoll is known to be part of Marshal Islands taken over from the Japanese after WWII. The goal of this mission was to repair a pier used by the locals on one of the tiny coral islands next to Roi Namur, which was our home for two weeks in July 1998.

The beginning of our famous mission was in the name of waiting for an available aircraft that was supposed to get us to the final destination. By "bad" luck the aircraft was diverted for medical emergency in some other exotic part of the world so we were forced to stay on the island of Oahu in a motel nearby Hickam Air Base. It was a nice treat to be stuck for three days in one of the hottest tourist destinations of the world.

It is very hard to get bored on Oahu and it is quite obvious those three days were packed with various activities. The Hooters restaurant in Honolulu I would recommend to anyone, it has nice views inside and out. Believe it or not, the food was also very good even though it consists of mainly american cousine. I opted for buffalo wings and spicy fries with couple of micro brews from the mainland USA.

Arriving on Kwaj we quickly relocated to our work area in Roi Namur vicinity for the next two weeks.