Reservists to get
going-away party

A pregame ceremony at Aloha Stadium
will bid farewell to soldiers bound
for duty in Iraq

Citizen soldiers of Hawaii Army National Guard's 29th Infantry Brigade will hold a farewell ceremony Oct. 2 at the Aloha Stadium before the University of Hawaii-University of Tulsa football game.

More than 2,500 members of the 29th Infantry Brigade and its subordinate units -- including the Army Reserve's 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry -- were activated Aug. 16 for yearlong duty in Iraq, beginning in late February or early March. This will be the 29th Brigade and the 100th Battalion's first combat assignment since the Vietnam War.

The soldiers have been training at Schofield Barracks and will begin leaving for Fort Bliss in El Paso on Oct. 4 for another three months of pre-deployment training. They will undergo their final evaluation and combat certification in January at Fort Polk in Louisiana.

Gov. Linda Lingle and Sen. Daniel Inouye, who earned the Medal of Honor while serving with 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II, will be the guest speakers during the 4 p.m. ceremony that will include the casing of the 29th Brigade's flag or colors. The colors will not be unfurled until the unit is in Iraq, probably stationed in Baghdad.

Friends and family members will receive entry cards to get into the stadium for the ceremony.

Other units of the 29th Brigade from the mainland are already at Fort Bliss.

The more than 535 soldiers of the 100th Battalion include soldiers from Guam, American Samoa, Marianas and Saipan.

In World War II, the 100th Battalion was a unit of the 442nd RCT made up of mainly Japanese Americans and that became the most decorated unit of its size in the Army.

Tomorrow, veterans of the 100th Battalion will hold its 59th memorial service at the National Cemetery of the Pacific and will recognize the deploying soldiers with special prayers.

The 100th Infantry Battalion's veterans club sponsors this annual service to coincide with the day -- Sept. 29, 1943 -- when the unit lost its first soldier in combat in Italy during World War II.

Brig. Gen. John Ma, commanding general of 9th Regional Readiness Command, will be the keynote speaker.

Following the 9 a.m. service veterans and families members will decorate the graves of the 166 100th Battalion soldiers buried at Punchbowl.