Mr. Neal Faradineh prepares for his new job in the military

Teacher, slam poetry coach, husband, and father. These are only a few of the roles Mr.Neal Faradineh plays every day. Along with the pressures of grading papers, and the responsibility of fatherhood, Mr. Faradineh has recently answered the call to service.

Two years ago, Mr. Faradineh joined the Army Hawaii National Guard,
“I was shocked. ‘Cause he went and he didn’t tell us. He just went and saw the recruiter on his own just to hear.Shocked, but also very proud that he would take the initiative to sacrifice himself for us,” saidMrs. Danielle Faradineh.

Mr. Faradineh and his wife have three children, Colt, four, Syrus, six, and Kawehi, two.

“My favorite thing about Neal is how good of a father he is. He’s very patient with the kids and he’ll take his time to answer their questions and just be a good father to them,” Mrs. Faradineh said.
His family and a new change is what motivated the veteran teacher to pursue military life,

“I joined to kind of as a solution to economic struggles, for the money but most importantly for the challenge,” Mr. Faradineh said.

After training for a year, then attending the Officer Candidate School, Faradineh was commissioned to second lieutenant. Faradineh has gone from leading students in a rowdy classroom, to leading a platoon of soldiers on the battlefeild.

“As a second lieutenant in the Hawai’i Army National Guard. Basically, I oversee a platoon and I’m in track, or I’m in charge and responsible for what the platoon accomplishes or fails to accomplish,” Faradineh said.

Faradineh’s students will be without their leader in January of 2013, when he is set to be deployed to Afghanistan for a year. In his absence, a long term substitute will be teaching the class along with his current co-teacher Ms. Kay Beach.
“It shouldn’t effect us that much, even when he’s away, serving our country, we have Mrs. Beach, and she’s just as good of a teacher,” junior Isaac Kaleopapa said.

Faradineh may be a new soldier, but his love of teaching will remain.
“My plan is to come back to teaching, you know. Not change too much. Life is going back, the same as it was before. It shouldn’t be too different,” Faradineh said.

Mr. Faradineh will be leaving for a semester
this year to train, before returning to teach in the fall of 2012 before his deployment. Along with all of the lives Mr. Faradineh has touched at Waianae High School, his family will be by far the most affected by his deployment.

“Everything he does is for us and even if he’s tired or, you know, from work, hungry, or whatever, he’ll just push, and push through. Give everything a hundred percent. Always for us.” Danielle Faradineh said.

Even when he is gone, he will leave with the love of his family and a classroom of students awaiting his safe return.