Sergeant Jeffery Goodman enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal with his family.
It's likely his last with them for two years.
That's because Goodman is part of a 4,000 soldier stryker brigade getting ready to ship out to Iraq in just a matter of days.
"We will actually start deploying our advanced party soldiers next week. And within the next two weeks many of these soldiers will be on airplanes on their way to Kuwait and into Iraq," said Colonel Todd McCaffrey, who heads up the brigade.
Within a few months 4,000 Schofield Barracks soldiers will be in an active war zone, Iraq. The first stryker brigade from Hawaii to be deployed to the middle east.
Sergeant Jeffery Goodman will be there.
He enjoyed this Thanksgiving meal with his family.
"It's a big difference because this is the last holiday that we're going to be here for the next 15 months. So it's a big thing for all of us to get together with our families," Goodman said.
"For this brigade getting ready to deploy again for the second time here in the last three years. This is a holiday here at home and we know we'll be gone for this Christmas and anticipate being gone for the next Christmas as well," Colonel McCaffrey said.
The deployment will leave Sergeant Goodman's wife Irene home alone with the two young children.
"It's challenging. You try to keep the morals that you guys establish among each other and try to instill it in your kids.And keep what you think dad would probably want for them," she said.
And the soldiers got a going away gift bag from the Hawaii Society of Volunteers.
"We kind of talked about it a little bit and tossed some ideas around, but also knowing soldiers who have come back. They've said wet wipes were things that they constantly asked for to be sent to them," said Janine Wedemeyer, who founded the organization.
Besides wet wipes the bags also included toothpaste and mouthwash, a small gesture that means a lot.
"I think it's a beautiful gesture to show that the community does care about us as much as we do about the community," Sergeant Goodman said.
They'll be doing even more in the coming year as they had back to war.
This will be the second Iraq tour for this brigade.
It was in the middle east in 2004, returning home to Hawaii in '05.