SCHOFIELD BARRACKS — About 2,100 Hawai'i soldiers — just back from Iraq — stood in formation yesterday as the 25th Infantry Division unfurled its battle flag from the yearlong deployment.

The formation represented 4,500 soldiers from the 3rd "Bronco" brigade and division headquarters who returned to Hawai'i in October and November from northern Iraq.

Violence may be down in the country, but some families and soldiers who were present yesterday continue to shoulder a lot of battlefield pain.

The command paid respects to the soldiers who were killed or wounded on the deployment, including Spc. Brendan Marrocco, 23, who lost parts of both arms and both legs when a buried roadside bomb hit his vehicle on April 12 in Bayji, northwest of Baghdad.

Marrocco, in a blue wheelchair, was front and center at the redeployment ceremony on Sills Field. Another Schofield soldier, Spc. Michael J. Anaya, 23, was killed in the same blast.

Three members of the Hyde family flew in from Modesto, Calif., to be there for 1st Lt. Daniel Hyde, 24, who died in Samarra on March 7 when two Russian-made anti-tank grenades were thrown at his big Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP.

Hyde's mother, Glenda; father, Brian; and sister, Andrea, wanted to meet the soldiers he served with.

"I think for me, I'm trying to grab every last moment of his life from other people. They were with him more recently than me," Glenda Hyde said. "The last time I saw him was August (2008)."

Soldiers told her some funny stories, including one that her conservative West Point son liked some odd rap music. She also was told her son once allowed a junior soldier to loudly eat potato chips over the camp public address system as a joke.

"Emotionally, we're doing pretty well," Glenda Hyde said. "People are a little astounded, but we're a really strong Christian family, and we feel like he's in a better place."

Maj. Gen. Robert Caslen Jr., the 25th Division commander, was in charge of 23,000 U.S. troops in the Ohio-sized region of Iraq. He said 51 soldiers were killed and 250 injured in combat among the troops under his command, including units based outside of Hawai'i.

Attack levels declined over the year. The 3rd Brigade operated in Salah ad Din province and completed 60 school renovations, seven new schools, 52 water projects, and 11 electrical renovations.

Pfc. Abraham Odisho, 21, lost his left foot and a chunk of right calf when an anti-tank grenade pierced the MRAP he was driving near Tikrit on March 27.

Odisho, an Assyrian Christian who was born in Iraq but moved out of the country when he was very young and has long been a U.S. citizen, said he couldn't feel his legs.

"I grabbed and lifted my right foot, pressed my heel on the gas, pushed down on my knee and continued to drive (and) got us out of the kill zone," Odisho said.

Spc. Michael Fix, 28, who delivered supplies and was in convoys every day around the city of Balad, and had been to Iraq with the same unit, the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry, said compared to 2006-07, "this (deployment) wasn't as bad."

"We didn't get attacked as much this time," the Mississippi man said. "Last deployment, we got hit almost every time we went outside the wire. This time, our specific platoon only took three (roadside bombs) and just a little bit of small-arms fire."