One of the nine men had been a professional bull rider before enlisting in the Army. Some had fathers who had been in the military. One said he wanted to serve in Iraq to help the kids, and another kept asking his mother to send crayons, candy and toys to hand out.

Most were too young to have started their own families.

The attack Monday started with rifle fire. Then came a huge blast, then another, as two dump trucks, transformed into giant rolling bombs, detonated outside their outpost, a former school in the town of Sadah, in Diyala province. Twenty other soldiers and an Iraqi translator were wounded. Most of the casualties came when a wall, then the second floor, collapsed in the building where the men lived.

It was the deadliest attack on U.S. troops in Iraq in more than a year, and its full weight fell on a squadron of just 330 paratroopers, a squadron that had already lost nine other men in little more than a month.

Within hours, the survivors in the unit were patrolling again, carrying their pain back onto the streets.

Meanwhile, the shock had reverberated around the globe to Fort Bragg and the 82nd Airborne Division, which hadn't lost so many soldiers in an attack since Vietnam.

Then, one by one, the news reached Phoenix and into those small towns in Nebraska, Georgia, Tennessee, Oregon, Michigan and North Carolina, where soldiers walked up driveways, knocked on nine doors and spoke the words that their faces, their uniforms, their very presence had already said.

"The secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deep regrets ..."

To learn a little about the lives that ended at that school in that tiny village, read below.

Kevin Gaspers

First Lieutenant, 26, Hastings, Neb.

At St. Cecilia High School in Hastings, Neb., Gaspers had been a football linebacker but also helped start a wrestling team. "The great thing about him was he had no wrestling experience, but he was the hardest-working kid out there and a great team leader," coach Ryan Brand told the Telegram of Columbus, Neb.

Gaspers is described by friends as a country boy with a patriotic streak and a sense of humor. After graduating in 2000, he went to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he majored in accounting. He also enrolled in Army ROTC, and in his senior year, he was battalion leader. Retired Lt. Col. Bede Bolin, who taught military science, told the Omaha World-Herald that Gaspers had a low-key leadership style admired by cadets and the faculty.

Earlier this month, when he was home on leave, Gaspers, 26, visited his college alma mater, joking with former instructors and classmates.

Ryen King

Specialist, 19, Bowersville, Ga.

King, of Bowersville, Ga., was a natural soldier; he had always felt it was his responsibility to protect his five sisters. When he told his dad, Jerry King, that he wanted to join the Army, his father pressed him to make sure he was joining for the right reasons. The elder King told the Independent Mail of Anderson, S.C., that Ryen told him, "I need to serve and establish myself on my own."

At Franklin County High School, King played football and baseball. He went into the Army in 2005 and is the second member of that graduating class to be killed in Iraq in six months.

In e-mail to his father April 5, King, 19, wondered what life might have been like had he not joined the military but instead gone straight to college. He was missing his family and his girlfriend, Hanna Davidson of Royston, Ga.

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