And now, in one of the deadliest weeks since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, another family is in mourning and the community is preparing to bury its sixth native son.

Army Sgt. Brett Swank, 21, of Northumberland Borough, died Monday, just one day before a Marine helicopter crash killed 30 Marines and one sailor, and another four Marines and two soldiers were killed in separate attacks. Swank, who was killed when a roadside bomb exploded while he was on foot patrol, will be buried sometime next week, according to family members.

"It hits close to home," said Northumberland County Commissioner Frank Sawicki, himself a combat veteran of Vietnam. "We're probably the hardest-hit county in Pennsylvania based on our size. The six we lost in the county came from the southeast to the southwest to the northern end. We've had some hard times."

The U.S. Department of Defense had not added this week's deaths in Iraq to casualty lists as of late Thursday. However, with the family's confirmation of Swank's death, Pennsylvania's death toll increased to 66 as of Jan. 24, according to the Defense department.

Allegheny County leads the state with seven fatalities, while Philadelphia, with five, falls just behind Northumberland. Regionally, Armstrong County had three casualties, while Westmoreland and Beaver counties each suffered two casualties. Fayette and Washington counties had one each, according to Defense department reports.

Swank's father, Daniel, said he received notification of his son's death late Tuesday afternoon. By the next morning, word had spread across Northumberland, his phone began ringing with condolence calls and the flags on two bridges spanning the Susquehanna River were at half-staff in his son's memory.

Daniel Swank said his son had been accepted to Colorado State University, but decided to enlist in the Army. As a member of the Joint Readiness Task Force, Brett Swank was not assigned to either of the two companies deployed to Iraq, so he volunteered to go.

"I said, 'Aw, you don't want to do that,'" his father recalled. "He had a plan. Go to basic. Go into the infantry. Airborne. Ranger school. Get $50,000 for college, join ROTC and become an officer and make the Army a career. When you're 17 and have a plan and follow through on it, that's incredible."

Swank was trained as a Ranger and served in the 509th Infantry Regiment, which was attached to the 10th Mountain Division.

Northumberland also lost Special Forces Capt. Robert Scheetz Jr., 31, of Paxionos; Sgt. Dale T. Lloyd, 22, of Watsontown; Spc. Zachariah Long, 20, of Milton; Staff Sgt. Michael B. Quinn, 37, of Herndon, and Spc. Matthew Sandri, 24, of Shamokin.

Sawicki has gone to all but one of the funerals so far. He said the turnout for each has been so large that the wakes were held in high schools or church halls to accommodate the mourners.

"When I see these mothers and grandmothers, I look into their eyes and I can see the sorrow. There's emptiness there," he said.

Northumberland, he said, is a small county, where the main population centers are the small towns of Shamokin, Coal Township, Sunbury and Milton. Word of casualties spreads quickly. Sawicki learned of Swank's death when he received an e-mail from the county's chief clerk.

"In a small town like Sunbury, you tell a nephew who tells an uncle and they tell someone else. Word spreads very quickly."

Each times Sawicki learns of another death, he thinks about his own son, who also is serving in the Middle East.

"Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. You sit there, and mother's praying and chiding me because I'm not praying. I think it bothers every parent," he said. "You don't want to see young men lose their lives. That's that."

Richard Simpson, commander of American Legion Post 44 in Northumberland, said Swank's late grandfather was a former post commander and former district commander.

"These deaths bring the war home real hard," Simpson said. "Any death over there is tragic. It makes it hard. I have coffee and breakfast at the same restaurant every day, and a day doesn't go by when the war is not raised.

"Some question the fact that we're there. To others, it doesn't seem possible that we've been hit this hard. What makes it harder is we know a lot of the people. Take Zach Long. He lived in Milton about eight to 10 miles up the road, but his parents are social members at the (American) Legion in Northumberland."

Simpson said he's worried because other county residents in the Pennsylvania National Guard are headed to Iraq.

On Monday, the day Brett Swank died, the Northumberland-based 103rd Armor Battalion left to train in Mississippi before shipping out to Iraq, as did another element of the same unit from nearby Lewisburg.