WAIPAHU — Army Maj. Michael Chang is currently assigned to Iraq with a 10-soldier team that lives with and trains Iraqi security forces in and around Saddam Hussein's birthplace of Tikrit.

But Chang was on a special mission yesterday as part of Operation Give Iraq, and the campaign began promptly at 0810 hours at Waipahu Elementary School.

There, Chang went from classroom to classroom to deliver an important message:

"I am here to say mahalo," he explained before showing a brief action video he and his team had made especially for the students. It was a way of expressing appreciation to the kids for their generosity in sending dozens of boxes of clothes, shoes and school supplies to the war-torn children of Iraq.

The video, which was backed by the song, "There Goes My Hero" by the Foo Fighters, was a collage of film and stills of Chang's team doing training maneuvers in Iraq. At one point, the screen focused on a shot of team members giving eight smiling Iraqi kids school supplies that had come from Waipahu Elementary donations.

"Hey — that's the picture we got!" one third-grader yelled out, referring to the very same photo posted on a classroom bulletin board.

The idea of the mission was for Chang to say thanks and get to know the kids personally.

Chang, who is with the 101st Airborne Division, started the morning at Building E in Kathy Duhaylongsod's third-grade classroom, where Operation Give Iraq began around three months ago.

Duhaylongsod had run across Chang's page on Facebook, a social networking Web site, and she wrote in response to his stated desire to maintain contact with Hawai'i and O'ahu, where he was born and raised.

"I asked if we could write to his unit," she said. "I had always wanted to reach out and do something with the students involved."

Together, the teacher and the soldier hatched the idea of getting the third-graders involved with donating clothes and supplies to the less-fortunate kids in Iraq. The hope was that her students would learn from the experience at the same time they were helping to better the lives of Iraqi children.

Others at the school heard about the effort and wanted to get involved as well.

Duhaylongsod said the idea had been inspired by Oprah's Big Give.

"Because we're all Oprah fans," she said with a laugh. "Oh yeah, the whole faculty donated things. And then Wal-Mart called and said they would donate things. It was all a letter-writing effort. We wrote to everyone we could think of to donate."

Throughout the class visits, Chang repeatedly asked the students what makes them the happiest, what makes them angry and who has inspired them the most. Responses were all over the map, but trends emerged. Most kids said they were most inspired by their families. And the No. 1 recurring anger response was the subject of bullies, which students said have been a problem at the school.

"How do you get bullies to stop picking on you?" one girl asked point blank.

"There are two ways," Chang said. "One, you outsmart them. Two, you confront them.

"All bullies are really cowards. That's why they pick on somebody smaller than they are. Confront a bully some time and see what happens."

Better still, Chang said, is to win over bullies — become their friends by engaging them, learning more about them and sharing their interests.

Chang's chief message was to let the kids know how much their generosity had been appreciated, not only by the Iraqi children, but by himself and his team.

"I know you guys have all kinds of backgrounds here," he said. "You're just coming into the school. Some of you are new to the USA. But what you have shown me is that you're on a great start to incredible citizenship. You guys left your mark. Thank you so much."