PETA is calling for a halt to planned medical trauma training in Hawaii that involves soldiers being instructed to shoot pigs, but the U.S. army says it will proceed with the exercise.

The exercise, scheduled for Friday, is intended to teach soldiers heading to Iraq this year how to treat injured colleagues on the battlefield.

Kathy Guillermo, director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' Laboratory Investigations Department, says the practice is inhumane and as outdated as "Civil War rifles."

"PETA is calling for an immediate end to this inhumane training exercise as well as a ban on the use of all animals for training military medics. Most medical schools long ago ended the use of animals for trauma training," a PETA statement says.

The animal rights group said there are more advanced and humane options, including high-tech human simulators.

But the army says it is the best option for helping soldiers learn emergency lifesaving skills, needed on the field when no doctors or medical facilities are nearby.

"Those alternative methods just can't replicate what the troops are going to face when we use live-tissue training," said Maj. Derrick Cheng, spokesman for the 25th Infantry Division. "What we're doing is unique to what the soldiers are going to actually experience."

Cheng said the training is being conducted under the careful supervision of veterinarians and a military animal care and use committee. He said the pigs will be anesthetized the entire time.

"It's to teach army personnel how to manage critically injured patients within the first few hours of their injury," said Cheng.

PETA, based in Norfolk, Va., said it received information about the training exercise from a soldier, who said the army planned to use M16A2 and M4 rifles on the pigs.

With files from the Associated Press