News of Wednesday's helicopter crash spread rapidly at Kirkuk Air Base in northern Iraq.

If there's one grapevine that never fails — whether passing information right or wrong — it's the military one.

In this case, the news was very bad: All 14 aboard the UH-60 Black Hawk had been killed — four crewmen from Fort Lewis, Wash., and 10 passengers from the 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry "Cacti" at Schofield Barracks.

Fellow soldiers paused, reflected and, while still in mourning, flew on Black Hawks and drove out the base gates in Humvees the next day.

"We've got a mission here to complete, so current and future operations must occur in order for us to be successful," said Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, a spokesman for Task Force Lightning in northern Iraq.

Maj. David Shoffner, a Schofield chaplain, reflected the regret that comes with that reality. "I wish it wasn't so, but it is the truth — the nature of our job is we have to get up the next morning and continue the mission," Shoffner said.

For nearly four years, Hawai'i troops have been continuing the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan in large numbers, and last week's crash was a painful reminder that their service sometimes comes at an awful price.

But the steady cycle of repeat trips to Iraq may be slowed late this fall and next year with congressional pressure and the top commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David Petraeus, issuing a progress report by Sept. 15 on the "surge" of 30,000 extra U.S. troops.

'HEART SINKS'

Wednesday was one of those moments when your "heart sinks. You just take that gasp of air and pray that it's not your unit," said Nichole DeKok, 31, whose husband, Spc. Dar DeKok, is in northern Iraq with the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry "Wolfhounds."

With the helicopter crash, 220 troops with Hawai'i ties have been killed since 2003 in service to the country — the vast majority in Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. service members, their families and military officials will be watching closely to see if a change in Iraq policy emerges.

"In the next couple of weeks, certainly Gen. Petraeus' assessment is going to have a major impact," said Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, the state adjutant general and head of the Hawai'i National Guard.

Lee, who is on the Army Reserve Forces Policy Committee, will meet with Army Secretary Pete Geren shortly after Petraeus makes his assessment.

Under present plans, many Hawai'i troops will be heading to Iraq in coming months.

Rotations call for 4,000 Stryker brigade soldiers from Schofield to deploy to Iraq starting in November with more than 300 armored Stryker vehicles; infantry battalions of 1,000 Kane'ohe Bay Marines are slated to leave for Iraq on seven-month tours into the New Year.

Amid concerns that service members aren't getting enough time at home between deployments, Geren last week ruled out extending deployments beyond the present 15 months, saying longer tours in Iraq stressed soldiers and their families, and contributed to an increase in suicide.

REDUCTION EXPECTED

There is a growing expectation that the U.S. will begin a drawdown of the 30,000 "surge" troops no later than April, and possibly sooner as a result of domestic pressure to reduce U.S. involvement in the unpopular war.

There are more than 7,000 Schofield soldiers in northern Iraq finishing off more than a yearlong tour in September and October, and more than 3,000 Hawai'i Marines mostly in western Anbar province.

How future deployments would be affected by a change in Iraq policy is unclear. Retired Maj. Gen. Eric Olson, who led the 25th Infantry Division during deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005, is among a growing number of Iraq experts who believe there may be a significant reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq in 2008, and a shift to a more defensive posture.

Olson spent the past year in Iraq as head of provincial reconstruction teams there, and is going back as chief of staff for the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a taxpayer-funded watchdog group.

Among those also looking to the future is Lee, the state adjutant, who said the Hawai'i Army National Guard's 29th Brigade Combat Team is required to be in a "ready status" for possible combat duty again in 2010.

Lee cautioned, "That doesn't mean they'll deploy at that time, but that is the time that they've got to be ready for a possible call."

Lee also said he has not received any calls about any possible acceleration of that schedule.

In 2005, 2,200 citizen soldiers from Hawai'i served a year in Iraq and Kuwait. Seventeen from the combat team were killed, but the 29th Brigade drew from a number of Mainland units, and one of those 17, Sgt. Deyson Cariaga, was from Honolulu.

INCREASED NUMBERS

The Army and Marines have been authorized to add to their ranks, the Army by 65,000 and Marines by 27,000 by 2012, and those increased numbers also will factor into readiness and deployments.

"So if they can get new brigades online, then they can maintain a credible force not only for what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan," Lee said, "but also because we can't be playing all our cards — we've got to have a reserve ready to react to anything else that might happen in the world."

Hawai'i has a record of early naval involvement in Operation Iraqi Freedom, with Pearl Harbor-based submarines firing some of the first Tomahawk cruise missiles in the war.

About 250 Marines with the 1st Radio Battalion at Kane'ohe Bay and another 40 with the 4th Force Reconnaissance Company left Feb. 9, 2003, for eventual Kuwait and Iraq duty, and more than 200 soldiers with Charlie Company, 193rd Aviation, of the Hawai'i National Guard were mobilized on Jan. 7, 2004, for Iraq.

But it wouldn't be until Jan. 13, 2004 — 10 months after the war began — that the first wave of an eventual 5,200 Schofield Barracks soldiers would leave Hawai'i for Iraq.

Another 5,800 deployed to Afghanistan several months later.

"I think some of the Mainland units started off a little earlier than us because we're in Pacific Command and had to say, hey, we've got to be poised for whatever happens in the Pacific," Lee said.

The fatalities have come singly and in groups as high as 27, as was the case when 26 Marines and a sailor from Kane'ohe Bay were killed on Jan. 26, 2005, when the big CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter they were in crashed during a sandstorm in western Iraq.

The fatality totals haven't always kept pace with the troop totals. In the Haditha area northwest of Baghdad, Hawai'i Marines with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, lost 23 to roadside bombs, firefights and snipers.

But the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, a sister unit that left for Iraq in March and is returning next month, hasn't had a single fatality.

MEMORIALS PLANNED

In western Anbar province, violence aimed at Americans has decreased with tribal sheiks turning against al-Qaida oppression, and a new U.S. policy of hiring and equipping Sunni Arabs in the region to improve security.

Although the 25th Infantry Division has lost 39 soldiers over the past year in Iraq, Col. Tim Ryan, the rear detachment commander at Schofield, said that prior to Wednesday's crash, the post had gone the past couple of months without a combat fatality as it prepares to return home.

"You become a little comfortable, and you begin to look forward to those reunions and see light at the end of the tunnel," he said.

A combat memorial with 14 sets of empty boots, and upturned rifles with dog tags, helmet and photos of the fallen soldiers, will be held Tuesday at Kirkuk Air Base.

A memorial back in Hawai'i is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday in the main post chapel at Schofield.

Within the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade in Iraq, which has helicopters from Schofield and other units, there are 58 UH-60 Black Hawks.

An investigation is under way into the crash, which officials said was caused by a mechanical malfunction. CBS News reported a problem with the tail rotor caused the helicopter to spiral into the ground.

Donnelly, the Task Force Lightning spokesman in northern Iraq, said, "There wasn't a stand-down per se ... but they did some checks on all the aircraft, which is completed, and the aircraft are still flying."

The 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, with Black Hawk, Kiowa, Chinook and Apache helicopters, has conducted 24,328 missions, transporting 4,936 tons of cargo and undertaking 318 air assaults with Iraqi forces, Donnelly said.

The brigade has 157,507 flight hours, accounting for 17 percent of the Army's worldwide flying time for 2007, and has maintained an accident rate "significantly below" all previous Iraq rotations, he said.

"It (the crash) is a tragic situation, but in light of that, your resolve becomes stronger, your desire to accomplish the mission and do your job is put back out in the forefront," Donnelly said.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.