Military retirees will see a 5.8 percent increase in their January 2009 check reflecting a change in the cost-of-living adjustment based on last year's Consumer Price Index.

This annual cost-of-living adjustment is not related to the annual military pay raise for active duty and reserve service members. In fact, this year's COLA increase is larger than the 2009 military pay raise of 3.9 percent. The increase, which goes into effect Dec. 1, also applies to survivors' benefit plan annuities, Social Security checks, and Veterans Administration disability and survivor benefits.

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About 700 Schofield Barracks soldiers from the 84th Engineer Battalion were honored during a ceremony at Hamilton Field Wednesday before deploying to northern Iraq. The 84th has been based at Schofield Barracks since returning from Vietnam in 1972. For more than a year now, the battalion's 561st Engineer Company has been deployed to Iraq's Diyala province.

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The Japanese destroyer JS Chokai successfully completed a ballistic missile tracking exercise off the northern shores of Kauai last month, setting up a full fledged intercept test planned for next month. During the exercise, Chokai's radars acquired a ballistic missile target, launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands on Kauai, and transmitted data via a tactical data link to other ships and shore command facilities. The Chokai's weapon system calculated a fire control solution and the crew conducted a simulated intercept of the target by a standard missile.

In December, the Chokai will attempt an actual intercept. It is the second of four Japanese destroyers that have been, or will be, equipped with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense capability.

Last December, Chokai's sister ship, JS Kongo, blasted a target missile out of the sky, using a SM-3 missile. The Raytheon Corporation produces the SM-3. The Kongo intercept was the first test of the SM-3 by an allied navy.