KANE'OHE BAY — The last of about 1,000 Hawai'i Marines destined for western Iraq left yesterday with a mixture of pride in mission, hope for democracy, quiet reservations and belief in one another.

About 300 Marines with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment said goodbye to family and friends and boarded seven blue buses for Hickam Air Force Base.

The Hawai'i battalion's headquarters is at Haditha Dam, northwest of Baghdad, but Marines will be spread throughout the "Triad" of Haditha, Haqlaniyah and Barwana near the Euphrates River and down to the Baghdadi-Jubbah-Dulab region.

The unit is replacing the Hawai'i-based 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, which had 12 fatalities since March.

"One of my buddies just got back two weeks ago and he said there are a lot of people doing good over there," said Navy corpsman Jacob Allen, 20, from Ruidoso, N.M., who is heading out on his first combat tour.

But Lance Cpl. Kristopher Cox, 21, who previously served in Afghanistan, said, "I'm not really thinking too much (about Iraq)."

"If I think too hard (about it), it's just going to be a bunch of bad things in my head," the Nashville, Tenn., man said.

A new Marine security report paints a bleak picture of the insurgency in Iraq's Anbar province, with the classified assessment finding prospects dim for securing the western region of the country, the Washington Post reported.

"We're in a recruiting war with the insurgency," Brig. Gen. Robert Neller, the deputy commander in western Iraq, said in August.

A government report in response to the assessment said different parts of Iraq have different security environments, and that is important to recognize. The buildup of Iraqi security forces in Anbar province has not worked as well as in other parts of Iraq because of Sunni Arab resistance, officials said.

Hawai'i Marine deployments had included rotations to Afghanistan, but that has ended as tours to Iraq have continued. The 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, which got back from Afghanistan in May and fought house to house in Fallujah, Iraq, in late 2004 and early 2005, is expected to deploy to Iraq for seven months in the spring.

Gunnery Sgt. Christopher Bellivan, 38, who left yesterday, spent all of 2005 in western Iraq with two other Marine units.

"The country's goal is to become a democracy," he said. Asked how probable that is in Iraq, Bellivan said, "Anything's possible." More time is needed with U.S. assistance to make it work, he said.

"Anything that important is definitely worth making it happen time-wise," he said.

Christa Allen, 19, who married Navy corpsman Jacob Allen in January, said she is proud of what the military does, "and I'm ready to see more Americans not just be behind our troops, but be behind freedom (in Iraq). I believe in the reasons that they are going."

First Lt. Timothy Merkle, 24, spent 20 days in western Iraq in June on a pre-deployment site survey.

"It's a pretty undeveloped area, obviously open desert," the Allendale, Mich., man said. "There were children waving at convoys going by, there were adults waving. It was a lot more receptive than I thought it would be. What their intentions are, I can't tell you."

Nine members of 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Andrew Hill's family came from Maryland to see him off. His father, Ken Hill, said, "I'm a little nervous. I've been trying to keep up with everything in the news."

A friend of the Marine is in Barwana. "He said (to my son), 'I can't wait for you to see it,' it's just a mess over there," Ken Hill said. "He said you can't trust anyone."

Ken Hill said he's proud of his son being in the Marines. "He's got his head together. He's a good kid," he said.

Andranita Dogan had a 2-year-old son on her shoulder and was trying to juggle a digital camera to take pictures of her husband, Cpl. Edgar Dogan, 24, before the Houston man boarded a bus.

"He wants to go get on the bus," she said of the toddler, who had been sobbing minutes before.

Andranita Dogan said she is scared and nervous, even though others have told her "it's going to be fine, that they have good armor, and they are going over with good gear and good training."

"That doesn't really matter," she said. "I just don't want him to be over there."

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.