BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — With six Hawai'i soldiers putting their shoulders into it and a few more pulling, the more than half-ton rotor transmission and the dolly it rested on rolled up the rear ramp of a CH-47D Chinook helicopter.

From there it was winched, pushed and prodded into place by soldiers inside and hanging off the big helicopter's tail like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

"Crank it up! Up! Up!" shouted Sgt. Miguel Rosas, 28, a helicopter mechanic with B Company, 214th Aviation out of Wheeler Army Airfield.

The Hawai'i soldiers worked from dawn to dusk this week getting four of the heavy-lift helicopters ready for the journey that is expected to take them through the mountainous Khyber Pass border region to provide quake relief aid in Pakistan.

It's been a race with time and mounting deaths, and it's been a test of a stretched-thin U.S. military's ability to do even more.

A magnitude-7.6 earthquake that hit Pakistani-held Kashmir on Oct. 8 has claimed the lives of about 80,000 and has left 3.3 million homeless as winter starts to settle in.

The United States had 12 medium- and heavy-lift helicopters on the ground in Pakistan and is bringing in 21 more Chinooks via Afghanistan — the Hawai'i aircraft among them.

The Chinooks, powerful helicopters that are key to hauling heavy loads up mountain passes, will drop off rice, milk, tents, blankets and other emergency supplies, and carry wounded people to Chaklala Airfield near Islamabad, the capital.

It's a different sort of mission for the B Company "Hillclimbers," who deployed last year to Afghanistan to transport troops and supplies for war.

"Everything we do over there, you are either saving somebody's life, feeding children or keeping somebody warm," Command Sgt. Maj. Hector Marin with the 12th Aviation Brigade out of Germany told more than 100 U.S. soldiers in preparation for the trip.

In addition to the four Hawai'i Chinooks, 12 from Kansas with 200 Army reservists and five more from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, are now part of Task Force Quake.

CLOSE TO HOME

The 60 soldiers with Hawai'i's B Company, 214th Aviation — who made one of the longest treks to provide aid by flying across the U.S. Mainland and through Rota, Spain, on cargo aircraft — got orders for the three-month mission on Oct. 13.

"We did two months' (preparation) work in five days," said Sgt. 1st Class Steven Wyllie, 35, from Daytona Beach, Fla.

Sgt. Noel Rao, a squad leader in the Hillclimbers' maintenance platoon, said the earthquake struck close to home.

The 31-year-old soldier grew up in Madras in southern India and moved to the United States when he was 26.

"I've still got family in India, and my brother was in Madras at the time of the tsunami," he said. A 30-foot wall of water surged a mile through the city.

"I wasn't able to do anything about that because I was (in the Army in Hawai'i)," he said. "This one (the earthquake), I'll be able to do something about."

Rao, who volunteered for the Pakistan humanitarian mission, deployed to Bagram Air Base in 2002 for eight months — becoming a U.S. citizen in the process. He deployed for another year there with the 25th Division last year, and this week was back for the third time as the Chinooks were refitted with fore and aft transmissions and twin sets of rotor blades.

An Iraq deployment is expected for thousands of Schofield Barracks soldiers next year.

"That's today's Army, that's all I can say," said Rao, the father of children ages 6 and 3. "I've gotten OK breaks in between. I'm not going to lie and say it's been easy. The biggest sacrifice has been made by my wife and kids."

Marin, the 12th Aviation Brigade commander, sent five of the twin-rotor Chinooks and three UH-60 medium-lift Black Hawks to Pakistan from Afghanistan on Oct. 10.

"The first week we got there, we saw the first snowcaps about 8,000 to 10,000 feet," he said. "Now you are starting to see the snowcaps coming down (to lower elevations). The temperatures at the higher elevations will drop pretty rapidly."

U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Ryan C. Crocker said helicopters are pushing out to more and more remote areas.

"They are doing so at real risk and we saw how great that risk can be with the loss of a Pakistani helicopter and its crew. ... It is a formidable challenge," he said.

The helicopter crashed on Oct. 15 in bad weather, killing six military members on board.

Helicopters are providing a lifeline as the earthquake destroyed or blocked primary and secondary roads into and around the region.

International aid has poured in, and demolitions experts are arriving to blow up rather than dig out landslides that buried roads.

United Nations Humanitarian coordinator Rashid Khalikov estimated rescuers have only five or six weeks to get people under shelter before the harsh Himalayan winter sets in, Reuters reported.

Marin said the U.S. military contingent in Pakistan until recently included five Army CH-47s and three Army UH-60s, two Navy MH-53s, and two Navy MH-60s.

Three British Chinooks have arrived and more are due.

FREQUENT FLIERS

The Afghan military was operating five MI-17 helicopters, Germany had two MH-53s and the Swiss and Japanese also were providing rotary-wing aircraft.

The U.S. and Afghan helicopters already have flown more than 600 hours, carried more than 1,600 passengers, transported more than 1.2 million pounds of supplies, and med-evaced more than 2,000 people, Marin said.

Five Huey-2 helicopters from the U.S. State Department that were already in country at the time of the quake supporting counter-narcotics efforts and operated by Pakistanis also have been flying nonstop.

Marin said about 400 U.S. service members will be living in an open hangar at Quasim Air Base on the outskirts of Islamabad.

Cots with mosquito netting were being set up because of the danger of malaria, and soldiers were warned about cobras wandering onto the airfield. Tents also are being set up for the troops.

Daily relief missions are being flown out of Chaklala, the headquarters for the U.S. military relief efforts. Helicopter crews have to deal with temperature drops as the choppers climb higher into the mountains.

A Pakistani officer will fly with the U.S. crews, helping to identify villages that need help.

"It's a lot of work. I recommend you go to the gym and start lifting weights," Marin told the soldiers, "because after you throw a few bags of rice, you'll be sucking wind. Lot of hard work is the bottom line."

Marin also warned the troops that they likely would see more suffering than they had ever seen.

Bagram Air Base was chosen to re-assemble the Chinooks, which have been workhorses in the mountains, in part because hangars and maintenance crews already were there.

TEST OF PATIENCE

The nearly mile-high base, ringed by hazy mountains, is about two hours flying time from Islamabad. Chinooks lined up in rows on the flight line went through test flights for the trip east, kicking up clouds of dust that swept across the runway.

Sgt. Michael Ras, 25, from West Valley, N.Y., was one of those working on the Chinooks on Sunday to get them ready.

"It's been a pretty fast pace, but it's been at a safe fast pace," Ras said. "The quicker we can do this, the quicker we'll be there to help those people."

Operating in Pakistan will be a challenge. Getting to Afghanistan was a test of patience.

The four Hawai'i Chinooks, disassembled and loaded onto three C-5 Galaxy cargo carriers, were the first U.S. Pacific Command assets to deploy to Pakistan for earthquake relief.

One group of 12 soldiers slept in the departure room of Hickam Air Force Base on Oct. 16 waiting for a C-5, were taken off the aircraft the next day when an oil leak developed, got up and got dressed at 1, 5 and 9 a.m. the following day and finally left in the afternoon.

In Rota, Spain, while waiting for slightly smaller C-17 Globemaster IIIs, which can land at Bagram Air Base while C-5s cannot, the group waited three more days before finally departing for Afghanistan.

Part of the problem, commanders said, was that only five C-17s were available with other wartime needs, two had broken down, and soldiers and Chinooks were arriving from multiple points at the same time.

"I'm all Spained out," said Sgt. Jesus Avery, 23, from Bakersfield, Calif., as he waited for the flight out.

C-17s also are being tapped for relief. Since the quake struck, the carriers have flown 938,000 pounds of cargo, 182 pallets and 69 passengers into Pakistan, the Air Force said.

Sgt. Sherman Inanod, 27, who grew up in Hanama'ulu on Kaua'i and now lives in Waipi'o, also spent a year in Afghanistan with the 25th Division, getting back to Hawai'i in March.

He wonders what he'll see in Pakistan.

"Mainly, what the conditions are going to be like. That's unknown. That's the main thing," said the helicopter mechanic. "Weather, security."

There have been stories of desperate villagers attempting to board relief helicopters.

"The conditions there — yeah, I'll be thinking about how the villagers are doing and how much they need," Inanod said.

While providing help to Pakistani families in need, he'll be away from his own.

"Going over there, I'll be thinking of the family back home," he said.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.