Retired Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, a Leilehua High School graduate who headed the first investigation into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, will speak tonight at a Hawaii Foodbank fundraiser in Waikiki.

The dinner is a salute to Hawai'i's World War II Filipino veterans.

Taguba and U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawai'i, will speak at the event.

"Both Sen. Inouye and Gen. Taguba really want to honor these gentlemen," Hawaii Foodbank President Dick Grimm said. "Gen. Taguba, who has been a major player in the Iraq War, brings a new perspective ... (and) he himself is a Filipino."

The event will begin at 7 p.m. at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. All seats to the $250-a-plate event have been sold.

Taguba received national attention in 2004, after he filed a 53-page report on the Abu Ghraib abuse that spurred international outrage and overhauls in military policy. He subsequently resigned from the Army and told the New Yorker that he was pressured to do so after pursuing the issue of detainee abuse.

Taguba was the second Filipino-American general in the history of the Army.

He was born in Manila and moved with his family to Hawai'i at age 11.

Taguba graduated from Leilehua High in 1968, and went on to attend Idaho State University. He joined the Army soon after graduating from college, and was later commissioned as an officer, serving multiple overseas deployments.

Taguba comes from a family of soldiers. His father served in the Philippines Scouts under the U.S. Army in 1942, and was captured by the Japanese army during World War II. He later survived the Bataan Death March.

Taguba's son, Sean, is an Army lieutenant who is deployed to Iraq.