Lt. Col. Marc Ferraro was 6,000 miles from Iraq when six national guardsmen from Pennsylvania were killed by bomb blasts during a four-day period in August 2005.
It fell to him, as commander of their home battalion, to notify most of the soldiers' families.
He recalls it as the most trying period of his life, except for the two times his younger son had to undergo surgery as an infant.
"It was brutal," he says.
Ferraro, today, holds one of the most important jobs anywhere in the National Guard.
At 42, he is commander of one of the Army's seven new Stryker brigades - the only one of the seven under a Guard division.
Unless the Iraq war changes dramatically, his 56th Stryker Brigade, based in Northeast Philadelphia, is virtually certain to be sent to the war zone after it finishes its initial round of training late next year.
Ferraro, of Cherry Hill, whose own sons aren't old enough to be soldiers, said he could promise the 4,000 Pennsylvania guardsmen under his command two things: They will be well-prepared. And with 330 of the 19-ton, eight-wheeled Strykers, they will have the fastest, most high-tech and "most-survivable" armored troop carriers in the military.
"I am confident that we would be going into theater with the best equipment the Army has to offer," he said Monday afternoon.
Ferraro, a career guardsman, said he was well aware of questions that had been raised about the vulnerability of Strykers. The Associated Press reported in May that the Army already was looking for something different that could survive big roadside bombs - the main threat to troops in Iraq - meaning that the Stryker's status as the Army's "next generation" vehicle may be short-lived.
Official reports on the numbers of Strykers destroyed or damaged were classified, an Army official at the Pentagon said yesterday.
"Any vehicle can be destroyed," Ferraro said, "but comparatively speaking, if I was going into Iraq in any vehicle, I'd want to go in one of these."
He spoke from the back lot of the Guard armory at Roosevelt Boulevard and Southampton Road, where a few of the green, ungainly-looking Strykers - costing $2.2 million each - were lined up.
Later, in the windowless, fortresslike armory building, he slumped on an office couch with one desert boot draped over a knee as he talked in an interview.
Compact and 5-foot-8, he wore the Army's new camouflage uniform, which bears a digitally designed pattern that makes it hard to see at a distance or in low light.
