The 25th Infantry Division will hold a deployment ceremony at 10 a.m. Friday for about 4,500 Schofield Barracks soldiers heading to Iraq. The ceremony will be held on Sills Field at Schofield.

Hawai'i Lt. Gov. James R. "Duke" Aiona Jr. is the scheduled guest speaker. Lt. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, U.S. Army Pacific commander, and Maj. Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr., the 25th Division commander, will also provide remarks.

Several units, including the 25th Division headquarters and 3rd Brigade Combat Team, will roll up their unit colors and store them in flag casings for travel, signifying the beginning of the scheduled 12-month deployment.

The units will begin deploying to northern Iraq in October. Caslen will be in charge of U.S. efforts in northern Iraq.

Mixon, now the U.S. Army Pacific commander at Fort Shafter, was head of the same region in Iraq, Multinational Division-North, during the headquarters and 3rd brigade's last deployment from July 2006 to October 2007.

About 4,000 Stryker brigade soldiers from Schofield are about nine months into a 15-month deployment to the Taji area just north of Baghdad.

When the Stryker brigade soldiers left, the Army was still on 15-month deployments to Iraq. The deployment duration has since changed, meaning the 3rd brigade and headquarters will be in Iraq for a year.