Guam Guard sprucing-up Veterans Cemetery

by Nick Delgado

Guam - Soldiers with the Guam Army National Guard are working to provide more space at the Veterans Cemetery in Piti during its annual training. 

It's a place where our fallen heroes are laid to rest, as Captain Melvin Pilarca said, "It sounds weird, but we are going to end up here so anything we can do to help the veteran's cemetery and anybody who submits request and we can support we definitely like to."

Pilarca, the Guam National Guard's 1224th Engineer Support Company Commander, and officer in charge Sergeant First Class Danillo Alquisa say they along with 20 other troops have their boots on the ground conducting maintenance on the crypts and engineer work in the cemetery's ponding basin. "The cemetery has a problem with flooding in certain areas and water drainage, and space so we are cutting into a hill to allow space for them to do their ceremonies," said Pilarca.

Alquisa added, "We are giving back to the community for the most part."

It's all part of the unit's required annual training. This innovative readiness training under the Department of Defense allows the National Guard to find opportunities to not only benefit the community but the soldiers themselves.

Such is the case for Private First Class June Arnaiz, who recently returned home after spending the last 6 months training to become a soldier. "It's actually great, there is some equipment here that I haven't operated yet or had some stick time so coming basic training and AIT and going into annual training is very good for me," said Arnaiz.

Aside from operating the heavy equipment vehicles and paying respect to their fallen comrades, captain Pilarca says the training allows the soldiers to be ready for deployment. "We train everything from soldiering to projects to safety to medical and we train the whole scope so when we are in theater or on some project off island, we are ready to operate," he explained.

The Guard members' annual training wraps up in a couple weeks.