WELCOME HOME! Friends, Family Greet VING Captain As He Returns From Service

CHARLOTTE AMALIE — Capt. Kai Callwood, HHC 786th, returned home after a year of deployment on September 11, 2021. 

Friends, family, loved ones and fellow service members were there to welcome home the returning service member, Capt. Callwood.

“Family and comradery is big on any deployment and I appreciated everyone for being here,” Callwood said.

Callwood deployed back in July 2020, was assigned to the 405th Army Field Support Brigade’s, Army Field Support Battalion-Africa.

In Africa, Callwood handled contractual and logistical requirements as well as serving as a petroleum and water operations planner and a volunteer mortuary affairs officer.

John F. McCarthy is a veteran journalist in the Caribbean, writing from the "Decision Space" where survival meets the surreal. His reporting steel was tempered by a lineage of legendary editors and broadcasters, including Ed Wynn Brant (The Bomb), Owen Eschenroder (Ann Arbor News), Lynelle Emanuel (BVI Beacon), and Charles Thanas (WSVI-TV). Alongside longtime colleague Kenneth C. "Casey" Clark, McCarthy has navigated the front lines of the territory’s history—from the 1997 volcanic "snow" to every major hurricane since Hugo. Known for leaning out of doorless helicopters to capture the "money shot," McCarthy now edits the V.I. Free Press, providing the essential link between the island's colonial past and its SpaceX future.