Ostermiller, a 1982 Kamehameha Schools graduate who went through the University of Hawai'i ROTC program, was suspended after a verbal altercation escalated into physical contact between Ostermiller and his operations officer, a major, shortly after the battalion arrived in Iraq in late February, officials said.

Brig. Gen. John Y.H. Ma, the general in charge of Army Reserve forces in Hawai'i, recently downplayed reports of Ostermiller nearly choking the operations officer and scuffling with military police, but said reports at that time were still filtering in.

"What we got back was he grabbed the officer by the collar and that's pretty much the extent that we saw," Ma said at the time.

Ostermiller's removal was effective Tuesday. No further actions are pending against him, officials said. Ostermiller is being replaced by Lt. Col. Colbert K.H. Low from the 9th Regional Readiness Command.

Lt. Col. Howard Sugai, a spokesman for the command at Fort Shafter Flats, said the incident was a stumbling block for the battalion, but "they'll pick up real quick as soon as Low gets in."

"The battalion keeps moving. There's a staff there, and there's a lot of depth in that staff," Sugai said.

The mission of the 100th is to provide security at Logistical Support Area Anaconda in Balad north of Baghdad. The battalion, attached to the 29th Brigade Combat Team, has 270 soldiers from American Samoa, 140 from Guam, 150 from O'ahu and Hilo, and 80 soldiers brought in from other commands.

Family members of the deployed soldiers say they just want to move past the incident. Officials in Hawai'i said they were not sure what role, if any, Ostermiller will have with the combat team.

The Maui man is married and has four children. He took command of the 100th-442nd in September.

Carylynd Ala, whose husband, Sgt. Ionatana "John" Ala, is with the 100th, said, "I think they just needed to have that issue resolved, and now that it's resolved, it will hopefully be better for them."

"My husband, when he called, said the guys were OK, everything was going fine," the Mililani resident said. "They just wanted to know, 'So, who's going to be our boss now?' "

She said her husband and other soldiers get together at night, have a bonfire, and five or six will watch a movie on a portable DVD player.

Ala said if Ostermiller hadn't been removed, "I think that might have affected them more with morale. Just having an officer be involved in that kind of situation, it's not the kind of thing you expect."

Low, a 1981 Saint Louis grad who holds a law degree from University of California, Davis, held a number of command jobs with the 100th-442nd between 1989 and 2002, including executive officer.

Since March 2003, he had been an instructor with the 4960th Multi-Functional Training Brigade, and worked full-time for the Reserves. He was mobilized and deployed to Kuwait in September with the 377th Transportation Command.