Page 27 - MidWeek - Oct 13, 2021

For The Oft-traveled Lewis, There’s No Place Like Home In The Islands
Shafter on O‘ahu. “Along the way as we crossed the entire country, we kept asking our- selves where the ideal place to live would be. I can only
“With all the hardships and things we’ve experienced in our lives, it was the place to come and be welcomed. I think it was meant for us.”
the last four decades, she ac- knowledges.
be very helpful.”
Lewis survived and then
she was asked to provide en- gineering and construction management in Baghdad and Al Anbar Province.
say that it felt like coming home when we got to the is- lands. They really spoke to us, especially the Hilo side of the Big Island.
“They didn’t think we could compete back then. They would say (to male cadets), ‘How could you possibly let women graduate from West Point?!’ My own classmates stopped talking to me at times during my four years because they were getting hazed and they didn’t want to take the abuse. But I was like, ‘Join the club, be part of the group! It’s not so bad — you’ll get used to it!’” she says with a laugh.
some. Following her time at the academy, she also learned to manage large projects while training and supervis- ing scores of people.
Despite the constant bomb- ings all around, the hijacking of many of her crew’s sup- plies and the heavy loss of life (including many of her own Iraqi contractors), the experience was incredibly rewarding, she notes.
After joining the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, she was put in charge of two districts: first in Philadelphia, where she oversaw 550 employees across five eastern states; and second in Seattle, where she managed 850 people scattered over four western states.
“My time there allowed me to do the most phenom- enal engineering work that I’ ve done in my career. We had a $2.1 billion construc- tion program. We built every- thing from fire stations and treatment plants, to power stations, court houses, roads and schools,” explains Lewis. “You name it, we were build- ing it in trying to give the peo- ple of Iraq infrastructure.”
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Lewis continues: “West Point was a huge test. I knew it would be hard and I thought I’ d be prepared, but no one can prepare you for a social revolution. There was a firestorm of publicity and controversy with people weighing in on both sides, and the faculty and cadets were all whipped up. Even the superintendent before we arrived said, ‘Over my dead body will women come to the academy.’ And that created a very rough environment.
Later, while assigned to the Pentagon, she was the engineer in charge of writing regulations that would protect the highest levels of the mil- itary from terrorist attacks. Ironically, she was there at the U.S. Department of De- fense headquarters the morn- ing of Sept. 11, 2001, when a hijacked commercial airliner crashed into the western side of the building.
L
classmate whom she wouldn’t meet until 17 years after they graduated) moved to the Big Island in 2011. Their arrival marked the culmination of the couple’s yearlong “Duty, Honor, America Tour,” in which Adams rode his bicy- cle over 18,000 miles, criss- crossing every state while saluting veterans, active duty personnel and their families as his wife followed him in a rented RV.
“But it was good for me because if you can survive in that environment and learn to still be yourself, then that can
Five years later, she was asked to deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and take command of the Gulf Re- gion Division District. There in the western Asian theater,
ewis and husband Douglass Adams (also a West Point
“I’m always where trouble is,” she says jokingly.
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While Debra Lewis followed in an RV, husband Douglass Adams traversed the entire continental U.S. in 2011 before completing the couple’s yearlong “Duty, Honor, America Tour,” on the Big Island. That’s where the couple ultimately settled. PHOTO COURTESY DEBRA LEWIS
“It was fate,” concludes the woman who earlier in her career was briefly stationed at Schofield Barracks and Fort
After touching down in the islands, the equally tough Ad- ams biked the remaining 222 miles on the last day of the tour and, along with Lewis, decided the 50th State would be where they’d plant their roots.
For Lewis, Hawai‘i has been “the longest I’ve lived any- where in one place in my life.”
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