The citizen soldiers are part of the 411th Engineer Battalion, which has 540 soldiers assigned in Hawai'i, Alaska and Guam.

All will be reporting to Schofield for three months of training, followed by 12 months of "boots on the ground" in Iraq, and three months back at Schofield afterward.

On Nov. 20, the reservists were alerted by the Pentagon that they likely would be part of a huge troop rotation to Iraq next year. But the news over the weekend of the actual call-up brought with it a change in outlook.

"Right now, just sitting down in the headquarters here, it’s very tense," said Lt. Col. Howard Sugai, a spokesman for the 9th Regional Support Command at Fort Shafter Flats.

Sugai said the soldiers, many of them carpenters, plumbers, electricians and heavy-equipment operators, don’t know yet where they may be going in Iraq.

It will be the first combat deployment for the battalion since World War II and the biggest mobilization of Hawai'i reservists since the Vietnam War.

Reservist Sgt. Phil So, a 40-year-old husband and father of two from Makiki, said he’ll be ready.He said nobody wants to be sent to a dangerous area, but when the orders come, he has to go.