Far from Virginia

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ALONG THE IRAQ-SYRIA BORDER - The 372 miles of arid, hilly border with Syria is a terrorist sieve, and the Virginia National Guard's 276th Engineer Battalion is the plug.

Every day, about 75 young men drive bulldozers and earth movers to fill in gaps in a massive sand berm running the length of the border; U.S. officials say this is where insurgents pour through on their way to join the fight against American forces.

Protection for the guardsmen is minimal, consisting mainly of a green, 5-ton dump truck with a black Iraqi tank turret welded to the top. Normally, half a dozen soldiers keep watch from the "Iron Maiden," as it is called, while their colleagues perform their landscaping missions.

The berm-mending project is one of several missions juggled by the 276th, which is made up of college students, plumbers, police officers, bankers and computer technicians. Other duties include the construction of roads and buildings, and security patrols in the city of Mosul.

It was on one such patrol that the battalion suffered its first casualty in early April. A rocket-propelled grenade tore off the lower leg of Pfc. Dean Schwartz, 23, and lightly injured two others. Pfc. Schwartz is recovering at a military hospital in Germany and is due to come to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington for rehabilitation.

Unit commanders would not say exactly how many guardsmen are on duty in Iraq's western desert, but the 276th is authorized to dispatch 528 soldiers.

However many they are, they all long for home while they risk their lives to protect it. Most say they were looking for "weekend warrior" duty when they joined the guard -- a hurricane here, a flood there.

They certainly didn't expect to be here in this desert as the spring blossoms came to their hometowns in Virginia.

Spc. Kenny Ray Stanford, 40, from Jonesville, Va, watches the sun set near the Syrian border as he cradles an M-16 and scans the distance for trouble. But in his mind, the rangy soldier is 6,508 miles away.