Kicking back in Qatar Winterport guardsman proud of his Persian Gulf mission

Like many Americans, John Marino chilled, kicked back, and enjoyed the Labor Day weekend.

Unlike most, however, Marino was getting his rest and relaxation on the sun-baked shores of the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, home of the U.S. military’s Central Command.

The Winterport father of three has served with the Massachusetts National Guard for 27 years and has been in the Middle East since November.

“It feels good. We just came back from a swim in the gulf off Doha, the capital,” Marino said by telephone from Qatar of his Labor Day pass for four days of R&R. “This is a great break for me. But I’m really in so much of a groove that if I didn’t go on pass it wouldn’t bother me. I really love what I’m doing.”

The break will be short-lived because by tomorrow, Chief Warrant Officer Marino will be back on duty with A Company of the 3126th Aviation Battalion in Kuwait, where he serves as a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter test pilot and maintenance officer.

Marino oversees a team of enlisted technicians who care for all of the Black Hawks deployed to Kuwait and southern Iraq. Some of the command’s missions are routine, others of a more dangerous nature. He said his work with the aircraft was similar to his civilian job at LifeFlight of Maine in Bangor, where he has been employed since 1999.

“I’m a risk manager. I manage risk,” he said. “Very rarely do we have anything that catastrophically fails on us. Most of the times it’s minor things and a lot of troubleshooting. We work as a team, and usually we’re on the same sheet of music, and that’s rewarding for me.”

Many times when the team members take off on a mission they make sure the Black Hawks are loaded with a few cases of “Bedouin Bombs.” Hardly explosives, the “bombs” are 2-liter water bottles filled with candy and stuffed toys for the nomadic Bedouin children who travel the desert with their families tending flocks of sheep and goats.

“We’re like the ice cream truck in the sky,” he said. “The children come running out, and we throw [the bottles] out ahead of them.”

Marino was born in Providence, R.I., and lived in Portland and Rumford for a period before moving with his family to Cape Cod at an early age. Many members of his large Italian-American family still reside throughout southern and western Maine.

Before joining the National Guard, Marino was a Marine and served as a jet engine and helicopter mechanic. He later attended Calvary Bible College and helps overseas with the Praise and Worship Team for chapel services at Camp Buehring, Kuwait.

His wife, Paige, is a substitute teacher at Bangor Christian Academy. His son Jacob, 16, and daughter Amber Joy, 13, are students at the academy, and the family’s oldest son, Evan, 19, attends Liberty University in Virginia.

He said the wonders of modern communications have helped relieve the stress and difficulty of being apart from his family. Marino said the soldiers he serves with purchased their own satellite linkup that enables them to communicate daily with family through e-mail and webcams.

Marino said that while his boys “think it’s cool” that he is serving in Iraq, his daughter had a difficult time accepting the fact that “she would not be getting any hugs from her daddy” for a while. He said telecommunications and time spent on leave in Winterport this summer have helped alleviate the distress.

“She was kind of holding her breath,” he said of his daughter’s worries.

Marino said he was eligible to retire before his unit shipped out last August but decided to go along on the mission after evaluating the situation and explaining to his wife, “How could I not go over there now that they need me the most?”

Although he acknowledged that Iraq, especially Baghdad, was a dangerous and unruly place, Marino said he firmly believes that the American presence was improving the lives of the people there.

“From my perspective, I know we’re making a big difference. If we left, it would be a completely different environment over here. And I’m not talking just Iraq; it’s the whole region,” he said. “Their society is thriving, and our presence has made it safer. The Iraqis, they’re just like you and me. They want to raise their kids and have a job that will provide for them.”

He added that while “obviously there are some very bad people who don’t like that and are trying to throw gas on the fire,” most of the people were beginning “to understand” what democracy looks like. Marino blamed Iran for many of the problems and accused Iraq’s neighbor of “stirring the pot” and getting “bloodthirsty people to throw gas on old wounds.”

Marino said his tour of duty is expected to wrap up in a couple of months and that he told his wife that “we will be sitting down and having Thanksgiving dinner together. And I hope to be flying with LifeFlight by December 1.”

Marino concluded by saying hello to all of his friends at LifeFlight and the people of Maine.

“I’m over here for them, the people of Maine, so that they can go about their lives without worrying about getting on a plane or on a bus or going to the mall,” he said. “Just like at LifeFlight, I’m using my skills to help others and to do something that’s bigger than myself. I can’t wait to get back to Maine. I miss it. I can’t wait to get back to trees and grass.”