Tammy Kubo, owner of Hawaii Pet Nanny and mother of Kuwait-bound soldier Spc. William Lurbe Jr., was among several hundred Hawaii residents who flew to Fort Hood in Texas to see their loved ones at Wednesday's farewell ceremony for the 29th Brigade Combat Team. “;Seeing three days of training comforts me. I know he has been trained really well,”; she said.

Kubo, the Family Readiness Group leader for Delta Company of the Army Reserve's 100th Battalion, joined a dozen business leaders who were flown to Fort Hood in a Hawaii Air Guard KC-135 jet tanker to observe the training of the 29th Brigade and the 100th Battalion. She also is the wife of U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo.

Joining the group was state Sen. Mike Gabbard, whose daughter, 2nd Lt. Tulsi Tamayo, is a military police officer in the brigade and who is on her second combat deployment and will be in Kuwait for nine months. She was a medic when the brigade went to Iraq three years ago.

The group was briefed on the techniques that will be used by soldiers in the 100th Battalion and the 1st Battalion, 299th Cavalry who will escort convoys from Kuwait into Iraq, driving as far north as Mosul. They were shown how convoy teams are trained to respond to reports of homemade bombs hidden along the roadside or what to do if a Humvee or truck is hit by one.

The group also got to fire the weapons, like the M-16, M-240 machine gun and the .50-caliber machine gun, that today's soldiers carry. However, no ammunition was used. The firing occurred in an indoor, air-conditioned range using weapons modified to “;fire”; light rays instead of bullets. The guns use compressed air to replicate the kick each weapon gives off.

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The Go For Broke National Education Center in Southern California has been awarded a $450,000 grant to study the role of Japanese-American linguists during U.S. occupation of Japan. The program will work closely with the U.S. Army Center of Military History. It comes at the encouragement of U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka and the National Japanese American Veterans Council, and follows the Department of Army's 2006 publication of “;Nisei Linguist: Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service During World War II,”; by Dr. James McNaughton.

The Army Center for Military History will use the oral histories collected through this program for a sequel to McNaughton's work in the study. Christine Sato-Yamazaki, president and chief executive officer of the National Education Center, said, “;We've been conducting oral histories for the past 10 years and have already interviewed more than 900 Japanese-American veterans of World War II.”;

The project started in September and will end in 2011.

The National Education Center had already interviewed several Nisei linguists who served in the U.S. Military Intelligence Service during World War II and then stationed in occupied Japan. An estimated 3,000 Nisei MIS members served in Japan from 1945 to 1952, during the U.S. military's post-World War II occupation.

In addition to its work with Nisei veterans, the National Education Center has developed educational curricula for schools in California, Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Go For Broke National Education Center membership and information are available at www.goforbroke.org