NA alum is Navy commander in Hawaii, helps in Maui fire tragedy
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When huge wildfires struck the Hawaiian island of Maui in August, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Brian Mowry, a McCandless native, conducted search-and-rescue missions with fellow crew members of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 37, the “Easyriders.”
Their worst enemy?
The smoke.
“In the first 72 hours, my squadron, HSM-37, provided initial search-and-rescue efforts in support of the fires in Maui. We searched for people in the water and delivered key personnel to assist with the initial efforts in Maui,” Mowry said.
“It was a hard mission, mainly because the smoke limited us from actually affecting any rescues. The aircrew all wanted to do more and certainly faced adversity like you wouldn’t believe, but it was unsafe to push in past the wall of smoke they encountered from the wildfires,” he said.
HSM-37 Easyriders operates out of the Marine Corps Base in Kaneohe Bay, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Its primary mission is to conduct operations in open-ocean and coastal environments. This includes hunting for submarines, searching for surface targets and conducting search-and-rescue operations, Mowry said.
Mowry is a 1993 North Allegheny High School graduate who joined the Navy in 1994 after his freshman year at Penn State.
After about seven years in the Navy, he applied for and was selected for a commissioning program called “Seaman-to-Admiral 21.”
He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2004 with a bachelor of science in marine science.
Mowry’s work is both rewarding and challenging.
“As the commanding officer of a squadron with 14 aircraft and 320 personnel, my favorite part is working with the extraordinary men and women of HSM-37 who put their lives on the line every day to support our flight operations at home and underway. They are some of the hardest workers I know, so seeing their success is absolutely the best part of my day,” Mowry said.
While flying helicopters is fun, it’s also dangerous.
“Our job is to deploy on ships that take our helicopters and aircrews over the horizon into harm’s way, and there is always a chance someone may not come home, and I’m not sure that’s something anyone can be fully prepared for,” he said.
“Beyond that, I assess the biggest challenge we face in the military is the mental health crisis. Every day we have new cases, which can impact our readiness to deploy,” he said.
Marine Corps Base Hawaii is on the other side of Oahu from Pearl Harbor, yet has a “very unique and tight connection to Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam,” Mowry said.
“It’s not uncommon to attend a ceremony on the USS Arizona, USS Utah, or even the USS Missouri because of their significance to our heritage,” he said.
Mowry’s squadron occupies a renovated hangar with a connection to Medal of Honor winner, John Finn, an aviation chief petty officer ordnanceman, who ran from the hangar on Dec. 7, 1041, to man a machine gun and shoot down attacking Japanese planes and was wounded many times.
Finn was part of a WWII Naval Maritime Patrol squadron that performed missions very similar to what Mowry’s squadron does. For the Easyriders, Mowry said, the connection is quite an honor.
There are some things that Mowry misses about Pittsburgh, including his family who still lives here.
“I can tell you that the blue collar grit and ‘black-and-gold’ spirit is something you won’t find anywhere else in the world,” he said.
”Also have to say, there’s not a day that goes by that I wouldn’t go for a world-famous Primanti Brothers sandwich.”
Mowry lives in Kailua, Hawaii, on Marine Corps Base Hawaii on the Island of Oahu. He and his wife Cary have two daughters, Mia, 11, and Kyla, 9. The family has a dog named Lucy.
Cary is a former kindergarten teacher originally from Pensacola, Fla. The two met when he was in flight school, marrying in 2008 at the Naval Air Station Pensacola Chapel.