PEARL CITY — Sixteen Hawai'i Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers yesterday were the latest batch of citizen soldiers from around the nation to leave for Afghanistan to train the Afghan National Police.

The National Guard Bureau has tapped all the states and territories to provide the trainers for the Afghan army and police. The 16 Hawai'i soldiers, mobilized on Thursday, will spend 60 days at Fort Riley in Kansas before heading to Afghanistan for nine to 10 months to be part of an embedded training team.

At a sendoff ceremony yesterday at the 103rd Troop Command headquarters in Pearl City, Jodi Uesugi had her hands full with daughter Teisha, 2, who wouldn't let go of mom as she pinned her husband, Arthur, with his new rank, sergeant first class.

The Hawai'i Kai woman will have her hands full for the next year with their three children, including sons Tache, 14, and Travic, 10, as a one-parent family.

For the Uesugis and about half the soldiers who left yesterday, it's a repeat of combat duty. Arthur Uesugi served a year in Iraq in 2005 at Camp Victory in Baghdad with the Hawai'i Guard's 29th Brigade Combat Team.

"I think it's too soon that he's leaving. Too soon," Jodi Uesugi said.

Arthur Uesugi said "it feels a little strange to go again, but my family, we're so tight, they believe in what I do, so they've got my back. That's the main thing."

Uesugi teared up a bit as a band played "Aloha 'Oe."

"Yeah, I was," he said. "Leaving the Islands again. I'm a local boy, so ... We'll be all right."

Gov. Linda Lingle and state adjutant general Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, the head of the Hawai'i National Guard, attended the sendoff.

"You have a very important mission," Lee told the assembled troops, who were at parade rest in camouflage uniforms. "It's the police that are going to secure the village and province" to reject Taliban influence.

Lee noted that another group of Hawai'i National Guard soldiers also are in Afghanistan, serving in the Jalalabad area along the eastern border with Pakistan, working with provincial reconstruction teams and the Afghan population.

Those 60 Hawai'i soldiers are attached to the 1st Battalion, 158th Infantry Regiment of the Arizona National Guard. While most of the soldiers leaving yesterday said they preferred to go to Afghanistan instead of a more dangerous Iraq, the 1st of the 158th has lost two soldiers in combat.

Pfc. Mykel Miller, 19, of Phoenix, died earlier this month in combat in Zabul province, and Sgt. Charles Browning, 31, of Tucson, Ariz., was killed June 1 in Mehtar Lam after his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.

The ages of those leaving yesterday ranged from 20s to 50s. The group included nine officers and seven senior enlisted soldiers.

Capt. Keith Young, 37, from 'Ewa Beach, an Army Reserve soldier with the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry, is making his first combat deployment to Afghanistan after deploying three times before to Iraq.

Young served in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, went to Iraq again with the 411th Engineer Battalion, came home for 90 days, and volunteered to go again with a Virginia-based unit.

When asked why he keeps going back, Young said, "I get asked that question a lot."

"One, I'm an American. Two, our nation is at war," said Young, a burly Department of the Army police officer who works at Fort DeRussy.

His wife, Oyunchimeg, hung on his arm and said it never gets easy, but it's her husband's job. They keep in close touch through e-mail, phone and letters while he's gone.

Maj. Frank Belen, 43, from Kaimuki is making his first combat deployment. He said he's not sure how big the elements of Afghan police will be that he'll be working with.

"I'm excited to go. My first deployment. Just willing to work with the people," he said. "Hopefully we'll leave it a better place than when we got there."

Capt. Ben White, who did not deploy, helped arrange an escort of the blue bus taking the troops to Honolulu International Airport by four HPD motorcycle police and two sheriff's deputies.

The sheriff's deputies were there partly to see off fellow deputy Staff Sgt. James Lupo, 34, who works at the airport.

"That's very good stuff," Lupo said of the escort. "I'm glad the state of Hawai'i allowed them to come and escort not only myself but the other National Guard guys that are going. It shows their support."

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.