MENTOR, Ohio — Eric Montgomery always pictured himself coming home from war in triumph, arm-in-arm with his big brother, fellow Marine Lance Cpl. Brian Montgomery. Brian was his idol, his boyhood protector and his barracks mate in the desert of western Iraq.
The two did fly home together last week, but it was the worst journey of Eric's young life. The plane that carried him also carried the body of his brother, who died Aug. 1 at age 26 during an ambush that killed all six members of Brian's sniper patrol.
It was left to Eric, at age 21, to define his brother's life and legacy. As he stood stiffly in his Marine dress blue uniform here Wednesday, he saluted Brian's flag-draped coffin and delivered a passionate eulogy to more than 600 mourners.
"Thank you, Brian, for bringing me home," he said at a church funeral service; his brother's year-old son, Alexander, sat in his mother's lap, wearing his own tiny Marine uniform. "That's all that mattered to you."
Lance Cpl. Eric Montgomery shares a heavy burden with dozens of grieving families in Ohio and across the country this month. As the casualty rate escalates in Iraq, Americans like the Montgomerys are struggling to hold their lives together while honoring the sacrifice of their fallen loved ones in uniform.
In the space of just six days, Brian Montgomery and 15 other Marines from an Ohio reserve battalion died in Iraq. Since the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment -- known in northern Ohio as the "Three Twenty-Five" -- arrived in Iraq in March, it has lost 47 men in combat.
The war in Iraq is unlike any in American history. Citizen-soldiers from the reserves and National Guard have been plunged into combat in numbers unseen since World War II and make up 43% of U.S. forces in Iraq.
Of the 1,840 American military deaths, about a quarter were those of reservists or guardsmen. Of the 45 Americans killed this month, 35 belonged to the reserves or Guard.
Reports of American deaths have seemed especially relentless of late. Less than a week after the Ohio deaths, seven National Guardsmen from Pennsylvania died in Iraq in three days.
When the time came to bury Brian Paul Montgomery, it was not just family and friends who honored his memory. Thousands in Mentor and two adjoining towns where Brian grew up and worked lined the funeral route. They stood in the punishing midday sun for more than an hour, saluting, waving flags and wiping away tears as the procession rolled past.
