\n\t\t\t\tTan Holdings corporate consultant Dave Sablan Sr. receives a Task Force Guam Eagle award as a \u201cCenter of Influence.\u201d (Jayson Camacho)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nThe soldiers were Tiffany Santos, Ivan Igitol, Andreau Reyes, Elbert Espayos, Ken Mojica, Christopher Del Rosario, Andrew Delos Reyes, Delorina Rabauliman, Danangelo Bicera, Nathaniel Mateo, Hainey Borja, Rita Taitano, Josh Ejercito, John Umbay, Brittney Igitol, and Joey Togawa.<\/p>\n
According to CW2 Bernard Aguon of the Guam Army National Guard, the Freedom Salute ceremony allows the community to honor the soldiers for their service and acknowledge the people who supported them and their service for the CNMI.<\/p>\n
According to Lt. Col. Michael A. Tougher III, commander for Task Force Guam, it was an honor for him to be part of the ceremony.<\/p>\n
Tougher said that 16 of \u201cour sons and daughters have been deployed to a country so far away to fight for our country and a lot of them struggled to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognized the potential that some of us might not return and a new reality of the daily threats to our lives,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
According to Tougher, the mission of the 16 CNMI soldiers was to conduct security missions across all six international security systems throughout Afghanistan. <\/p>\n
Tougher said that Task Force Guam was the largest national guard element at that time of the mission and conducted over 16,500 separate missions. <\/p>\n
Other keynote speakers at yesterday\u2019s event were Lt. Col. Romeo J. Delfin, commander, 1st Battalion, 294th Infantry Regiment, and Maj. Gen. Benny M. Paulino, Adjutant General for the Guam National Guard, who also thanked the soldiers for their service.<\/p>\n
The Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve, represented by Guam and CNMI ESGR chair David Sablan, also presented awards, called \u201cMy Boss is a Patriot,\u201d to some of the employers of these 16 soldiers.<\/p>\n
The awardees included Delta Management\u2019s James Arenovski and Ephrem Gangin, who were both nominated by SPC Rita Taitano; IT&E CNMI Fedora Camacho, nominated by SPC Nathaniel Mateo; Marianas Eye Institute\u2019s Dr. David Khorram and Russ Quinn; and Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. chief executive officer Esther Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
Another award was presented to Gov. Eloy S. Inos called the \u201cCenter of Influence\u201d award for standing out as the most helpful to the soldiers during their mobilization. <\/p>\n
Other \u201cCenter of Influence\u201d awardees are the 18th Commonwealth Legislature, Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP), Marie Igitol, Tan Holdings president Jerry Tan, CNMI Veterans Affairs Office director Vicente Camacho, and Dave Sablan of Tan Holdings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sixteen CNMI soldiers who returned from deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom were honored…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":40477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[495,26,51,78],"class_list":["post-40475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-afghanistan","tag-cnmi","tag-guam","tag-tan-holdings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}