By By JOHN EBY / Niles Daily Star
DOWAGIAC – Ribbon-cuttings aren't usually held in the dark, but an exception was in order when the ribbons are yellow and welcome home Electronics Technician 2nd Class (Surface Warfare) Justin Pontius on his 27th birthday.
Pontius, shivering Thursday after spending most of 2007 in the Horn of Africa, where temperatures reach a sweltering 140 degrees, joined his family around the table at 508 E. Telegraph St., Dowagiac, for a stroganoff dinner after his first look at the house in Niles his wife Daphne (Snyder) bought while he was away. They married in February 2001.
The 2000 Brandywine High School graduate last visited Dowagiac in March before he shipped to Africa.
"It's chilly here, but it's good to be home," Justin said. "I left Africa (last) Friday. We stopped in like four different places. It took 30 hours on the plane. We had a night in Norfolk (Va.), then a flight back to San Diego, where my parent command is. I only have a couple months left in the Navy after 7 1/2 years," since June 2000.
"He's our pride and joy," beamed his grandmother, Anna Mae Griechen, since his mother, Dawn, is the oldest of four children and he was the first grandchild.
"He always loved computers," his mother said, adding that Justin's first word was "light," pointing at the wall switch.
"When Madison was born," Dawn said, "I had to wait six months (to see her). I was living in Muskegon at the time. They set up this plan with Mom and Shawn (her younger sister, who works at Pizza Hut) to surprise me. I walked in the back room and there's the baby lying there and my grandson and my daughter-in-law and Justin. I hadn't seen them for two years. I didn't know who to go to first."
Pontius said he happened to be home on leave from Japan on Sept. 11, 2001, for the birth of his son, Austin, now 6, and in first grade. He also has a daughter, Madison, 3.
They met when Justin played in a garage band with her dad, Ken Snyder.
According to the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) Public Affairs Office at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, Pontius served in the Horn of Africa as a communications specialist.
Camp Lemonier is strategically located in the country of Djibouti, which neighbors Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea in eastern Africa.
CJTF-HOA's mission is to conduct unified action in the combined joint operations area-Horn of Africa to prevent conflict, promote regional stability and protect Coalition interests to prevail against extremism.
The organization operates by three "cornerstones": to work with host nations to promote regional stability; the people of CJTF-HOA conduct military-to-military training with host nation militaries, civil-military operations alongside host nation medical personnel and engineers and engagement as CJTF-HOA senior leaders work with U.S. embassies in host nations and the media as they tell the story of Horn of Africa operations.
"It's a great honor to serve with my fellow sailors, airmen, Marines and soldiers," he says. "Although the physical conditions there were tough, we had an important mission for the future security of the region."
Units affiliated with CJTF-HOA help host nations to meet their nation's needs, such as clean water, functional schools, improved medical facilities and medical care, improved roads and skills for the nation's military to secure its borders and operate in a maritime environment, if necessary.
The CJTF-HOA organization includes about 1,800 people from all branches of U.S. military service, civilian employees, Coalition forces and partner nations. They work together every day to accomplish the mission at hand.
After his stay is up next week, Pontius reports to San Diego.
"I started off at Great Lakes (Ill.) for boot camp and tech school. I was there for almost a year. I was in Japan for four years."
Pontius served aboard the USS John McCain.
"I was on a smaller ship, a guided-missile destroyer," Pontius said. "It's 504 feet long and carries about 340 with officers and crew. Newer aircraft carriers, you can put 6,000 people on" – all of Dowagiac.
"Our primary mission is strike warfare, which is exactly what we did in Iraq," he said. "We launched cruise missiles that destroyed stuff on land. It does everything. You can fight submarines and it's got surface-to-air missiles and five-inch guns that will lob shells at the shore. While I was in Djibouti, they found a suspected terrorist in Somalia and they lobbed shells at where they thought he was."
After spending 2001 to 2005 aboard ship, in Africa he was an "individual augmentee."
"It's not like a unit that deploys," just Justin himself. "They give me orders and I go by myself and report to a new command. I worked in the shop for about eight months. In San Diego, with the shore command, I'm an electronics technician, maintaining radios like I do on the ship and I did in Africa. Same job, different place."
He joined the Navy because "they called first," he said. "I was going to go to one of them, Air Force or Navy, and the Navy called first and I liked what they had to offer. I've been everywhere but Europe and Antarctica.
"I got to Africa in late April after a couple of weeks combat training at Fort Jackson, S.C. They're doing a lot of things there. They're there to prevent terrorism from taking hold and to spread good will through some of the poorer countries. I was with a team of Army guys doing training with Ethiopian special forces. Then we changed missions and started building a school for some of the local children."
While "I flew over it," he was "never in Iraq. I was off the shore of Iraq. We launched 39 Tomahawks during the war. I was in Kuwait for about a week in transit, waiting to hop a plane to Djibouti. I didn't want to go to Iraq. I'm looking forward to lots of relaxing, spending time with my kids and watching TV. They've grown about six inches. Austin was in kindergarten when I left and he's in first grade now. He's spelling and learning words."
It's "nice" that he could stay in daily contact with his family via e-mail.
"That's one of my jobs, maintaining network connectivity for the ship," he said.