2011 Hawaii Code
DIVISION 1. GOVERNMENT
TITLE 4. STATE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION, GENERALLY
26. Executive and Administrative Departments
§26-21 Department of defense.

§26-21 Department of defense. (a) The department of defense shall be headed by a single executive to be known as the adjutant general. The adjutant general shall also be the director of civil defense.

There shall be a full-time vice director of civil defense who shall be appointed and may be removed by the director.

The department shall be responsible for the defense of the State and its people from mass violence, originating from either human or natural causes.

The devolution of command of the military forces in the absence of the adjutant general shall be within the military establishment. The devolution of command of the civil defense agency in the absence of the director of civil defense shall be within the civil defense agency.

(b) There shall be within the department of defense a commission to be known as the civil defense advisory council which shall sit in an advisory capacity to the director of civil defense on matters pertaining to civil defense. The composition of the commission shall be as heretofore provided by law for the civil defense advisory council existing immediately prior to November 25, 1959.

(c) The functions and authority heretofore exercised by the military department and the civil defense agency as heretofore constituted are transferred to the department of defense established by this chapter.

The office of veterans' services and the advisory board on veterans' services as constituted by chapter 363 are placed within the department of defense for administrative purposes. [L Sp 1959 2d, c 1, §28; Supp, §14A-27; HRS §26-21; am L 1969, c 122, §1; am L 1981, c 82, §2 and c 135, §4; am L 1988, c 115, §2]