ARMY PHOTO 100th Battalion Command Sgt. Maj. Harold Estabrooks pinned the Purple Heart on Spc. Milovale Solaita, one of five 100th Battalion soldiers to receive the medal in Iraq.

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2 Hawaii soldiers
decorated

The 100th Battalion awards
Purple Hearts to five soldiers
who were wounded in Iraq

Two soldiers from Hawaii were among the five 100th Battalion/442nd Infantry Regiment soldiers awarded Purple Heart medals in Iraq last weekend.

And a sixth Army Reserve member of the 29th Brigade Combat Team -- Spc. Nicholas Tuiolostaga of American Samoa -- will receive his Purple Heart after surgery at Tripler Army Medical Center this week.

Four of the soldiers were injured March 19 when their convoy was hit by a homemade bomb. Details on the other injuries were sketchy, but all of them were a result of improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs.

The four wounded March 19 are Pvt. Adrian Quick of Fayette, N.C.; Capt. Jeffrey Wyatt of Orange Park, Fla.; Sgt. Dominador Ruiz; and Sgt. 1st Class Aaron Nakashima. Ruiz is from Honolulu and Nakashima lives in Moiliili.

Also awarded the Purple Heart was Spc. Milovale Solaita of American Samoa, who was wounded March 22 when his patrol encountered a homemade bomb.

Darlene Nakashima said her husband, Ruiz, Quick and Wyatt were riding in the second Humvee in a convoy of four on patrol in Balad, north of Baghdad. Ruiz was driving the Humvee, Nakashima was sitting in the front passenger seat, Quick was on post as a gunner and Wyatt was in the back seat as a passenger.

"He (Aaron Nakashima) said that an IED (improvised explosive device) had exploded at the rear of his Humvee," Darlene Nakashima said. "They were doing combat duty, and all of them received head and body injuries."

She said her husband, who has been in the Army Reserve for 30 years, called her the same day the Army informed her that he had been wounded.

"He said he was OK and told me not to worry, but of course I worried."

She said her husband also does not want to say how badly he was wounded.

"He just said there were fragments everywhere but everyone was OK."

"He says he spends his spare time working out at the gym and writing letters to his daughter."

Darlene Nakashima said her 11-year-old daughter, Terri Lynn, gets at least one letter a week from her father.

The weekend award ceremony was at the battalion headquarters at Logistical Support Area Anaconda near Baghdad.