"We're taking care of the nitty-gritty details so that when they do get mobilized they can start concentrating on being soldiers," said Maj. Charles Anthony, state Department of Defense public affairs officer.

For many of the young soldiers, these precautions are unlike anything most of their civilian peers have had to face.

"It's kind of weird. I'm the only guy I know in my group of friends that has a will," said 21-year-old Sgt. Sterling Beair, of 'Ewa Beach.

The combat medic, who was helping with vaccinations and drawing blood for DNA testing, said the deployment comes as no surprise. "September 11 happened while I was in boot camp, so you could kind of see it coming in the distance," he said.

While they might not deploy to Iraq until February, many of the brigade's nearly 2,000 soldiers will be mobilized for extensive training as early as September. The location for their training has not been set, but some soldiers yesterday said they would remain in Hawai'i for training, while others will be sent to the Mainland.

Sgt. Julius Jaralba, 29, hopes he will still be on O'ahu when his fifth child is born at the end of September. In his nine years with the National Guard, the longest he has been away from home is four months.

"It will be real hard, but I also have a military obligation I have to fulfill," he said. "It's pretty tough."

Jaralba, a records clerk, said he is not worried about his own safety, but he is concerned about the family he is leaving behind.

The news of the deployment has left the family shaken. As they sold ribbon-shaped magnets at a fund-raiser for the troops, Jaralba's daughters talked about how sad they were that their father would be leaving for so long.

"I was at the dentist, and my mom told me, and I started crying," said Britnay, 9.

Jaralba's wife Madielyn, 28, said she is still in shock over the news. She plans to move to Kalihi so her parents can help with the girls, and she is worried about how the family will survive financially while her husband is gone. "We'll try to manage," she said.

Spc. Brandon Maki, 23, plans to marry his fiancee before he leaves so they can cement their commitment to each other and so she will be covered by his military benefits. Since they had to move up their wedding date, the couple will hold off on a big ceremony until he returns from Iraq.

Aside from the marriage and paperwork, Maki doesn't know what else he can do before he leaves. "You can't really prepare yourself for ... deployment because you don't know what's ahead of you," he said.

With no spouse or children to leave behind, Sgt. 1st Class Mara Bacon, a fifth-grade teacher at Kamehameha Schools, counts herself among the lucky ones. "I feel ready to go ... I'm actually excited about going," she said.

It won't be easy, though. "We're completely leaving our lives back here," she said, adding that she feels especially for those who will leave family at home.

With a brother, father and uncle in the National Guard, Spc. Lehua Halemano, 22, will have family with her in Iraq, although not necessarily at the same location.

"The only ones that will be left behind are my mother and my 5-year-old brother," she said.

Although she is hoping having family in Iraq will make her deployment easier, she is more worried for her mother, a pharmacist who counts on other family members to help with childcare. "We played a big part in that," she said.