Once again, duty calls for Hawai'i's citizen soldiers.

A contingent of 1,700 Hawai'i Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers will ship out beginning next week, heading for Kuwait and Iraq after training at Fort Hood.

Most of the 1,200 Guard and 500 Reserve soldiers will provide security at installations in Kuwait and for convoys heading north into Iraq.

For many of Hawai'i's soldiers — and families and friends as well — the deployment ceremony has become a familiar ritual. It's also an important acknowledgement of the continuing sacrifice and service these soldiers and their families make to help build a better world.

But for many of us, these deployments have become not familiar, but merely routine. They are stories in the paper or on TV, several steps removed from the reality of our neighbors heading off to war.

But this morning, there's an opportunity to appreciate their service in tangible way.

A big Aloha Stadium deployment ceremony, from 11 am. to 1 p.m. today, is free and open to the public. A pre-ceremony program begins at 9:30 a.m. and parking is free. Canned food items will be collected for the Food Bank.

There will even be an attempt to set a world record for the largest group hug, a special "offering of aloha."

The biggest possible hug makes sense; it will have to sustain us until we can welcome our citizen-soldiers back home, safe and sound.