A Marine reserve unit based in Ohio is suffering enormous casualties, while their families in their Ohio hometown suffer along with them long distance.
One here, one there, then four, then eight, then one. That was the toll in May alone for the flinty battalion, headquartered in Brook Park, a Cleveland suburb, and dispatched to a remote desert outpost on the Euphrates River in Iraq in March. Then came this week, the worst so far. Five Marines from the battalion were killed Monday, and an additional 14 on Wednesday.