http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2005/08/13/20050813-A1-03.html&chck=t
American wars used to be that way. In the Civil War, a town’s population of young men could be devastated in one battle. It was almost normal, because the military largely organized by city, county or state.
But it’s been a long time since a unit from a particular place was likely to lose lots of men at once. Columbus has found that it can happen again.
The Rickenbacker-based Lima Company of the 3 rd Battalion, 25 th Marines, had nine men killed in one bombing on Aug. 3. Sixteen members in all have been killed since May, or 10 percent of the troops it entered Iraq with in March.
"This happened to hit Columbus hard, but it’s not a unique experience," said Allan Millett, a military historian at Ohio State University.
The U.S. military is relying "to a greater degree than any war since the Civil War," on units with some geographic identity, said Mark Pitcavage, a Columbus military historian. So the kind of loss Lima Company experienced can happen again, in other places.
http://www.legacy.com/Dispatch/Soldiers.asp?Page=FSSearchResults&Sort=Recent&State=OH
