"By coming out and talking with the boys, things come back," said Handa, 83, of 'Aina Haina, an infantryman who fought in Italy and France. "I'm an original member, I gotta come out."

Veterans of the 442nd joined family members of soldiers with the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry Regiment now serving in Iraq at the Sheraton Waikiki yesterday to celebrate the unit's 62nd anniversary.

More than 1,500 veterans and their families were served lunch while several politicians, including Gov. Linda Lingle, took the stage to pay their respects.

"Our state and our nation and our world owe you a debt that we can never repay," Lingle said. "You fought for the honor of every Japanese-American and you upheld that honor admirably."

During a two-year span in Europe during World War II, the 100th Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team fought in eight major campaigns, suffering 9,486 casualties. In addition to the 9,486 Purple Hearts, the combat team and attached battalion earned 587 Silver Stars, 33 Distinguished Service Awards and 21 Medals of Honor.

They fought while segregated from the rest of the troops.

The 442nd soldiers were all Americans of Japanese ancestry who volunteered to defend their country and prove their loyalty to the United States at a time when many of their families were being held in internment camps. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order ending segregation in the military.

Yesterday, while veterans gathered in small groups to shake hands before lunch, talk turned to the dwindling numbers of original 442nd members.

Diamond Head resident Ed Ichiyama, 81, a former artilleryman, said each year he becomes more aware of his own mortality.

"We are a diminishing breed," he said. "Each year, when we meet, we realize we better enjoy because next year some of us may not be around."

Charles Ijima, 80, of Kailua, a veteran of the 232nd Engineering Company, said the years have been hard on the original unit's ranks. As the years pass, friends and former comrades have died or become ill.

"A lot of our friends are gone. It's mostly widows and children," he said. "I'm the youngest guy in my company and I'm 80, so you can imagine the rest of the guys."

Ijima voiced concern for members of the unit's "younger generation" serving in Iraq.

Claudia Baliscao, whose husband, Rene, is a combat medic with the unit in Iraq, said you have to stay positive and hopeful to survive the ordeal of having a loved one at war.

"I respect him (her husband) and I'm honored to support him," she said.

Linda Vares-Routt, wife of Dana Routt, a soldier serving with the unit's Charlie Company in Iraq, acknowledged that seeing a room full of men who survived combat helped to fortify her hope that her husband will come home.

"We have faith," she said. "He's gotta come back."

The family of one former unit member who did not make it back from Iraq was on hand yesterday.

Nakoa Hoe, a private first class in the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry Regiment and younger brother of Nainoa Hoe, a Hawai'i soldier killed by a sniper in Iraq in January, was among several current unit members there.

While the veterans were lauded for their contributions and sacrifices yesterday, many of them still bore harsh reminders of the life-altering consequences of war.

Shigeru Goto, 91, lost his right leg below the knee in Italy on April 15, 1945, when an artillery shell exploded near his company.

Today, he sits in a wheelchair and is maneuvered about by his wife, Janet. He still remembers the two years he spent shuffling between Army hospitals before he finally made it back to Hawai'i. But the battles he fought in Europe forever linked him to his Army buddies, and he never misses a chance to see them.

"After all, we went through life-and-death situations," the former buck sergeant said. "We're close to each other. We have to honor those who died."