Changing role of National Guard takes toll on its citizen soldiers

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/nation/12275037.htm

They all left together, Charlie Company, the so-called "Black Sheep," 160 members of the Army National Guard on their way to Iraq from this small southern Louisiana community.

As the buses rolled down Main Street, residents poured out of homes and businesses to wave goodbye to their citizen soldiers - college students, truck drivers, river workers, clerks. Students from Terrebonne High School left class and streamed onto the street for a last glimpse, some with tears rolling down their faces.

Three months later, six of them returned together in flag-draped coffins following the worst single combat incident for the National Guard in Iraq. Seven soldiers had been killed when a roadside bomb struck their Bradley fighting vehicle, flipping the 50,000-pound vehicle upside down and killing everyone inside.

Six of the men were from Charlie Company, four from Houma and nearby Raceland. The community was devastated.

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The funerals lasted days, and before the six soldiers could be buried, two more Louisiana National Guardsmen were killed by another roadside bomb.