HAMILTON HIGH SCHOOL Brick plaza will honor 3 slain Army soldiers

The public may view the plaza even if school is not in session.
HAMILTON, Ohio (AP) -- A high school is fashioning a plaza of bricks that will contain a permanent tribute to the short lives of three graduates who died serving in the Army.
Two of the Hamilton High School graduates were killed in Iraq, and the third died during a military training exercise in Texas.
School administrators are planning to have bricks engraved and installed to honor Sgt. Charles J. Webb and Pfc. Marlin Rockhold, killed while serving in Iraq, and Sgt. Benjamin Moore, killed in a training accident last year at Fort Hood in Texas.
This fall, the high school installed the first engraved bricks in a public plaza in front of the school. A boosters' group helped establish the plaza of brick pavers to honor former graduates or major sponsors of Hamilton High.
School officials learned Wednesday about the death of Webb. They haven't yet selected a date for having the brick pavers installed in honor of the soldiers, school principal Dennis Malone said. Students and school staff are still coping with the latest death.
"We're just getting used to the idea that it happened," Malone said. "One is too much, in my opinion."
The plaza is in front of Hamilton High and can be viewed at any time whether or not the school is in session, he said.
Another site
It's not the first time that a local area in Ohio has felt the pain of multiple military deaths during a war.
The southeastern Ohio community of Beallsville, in Monroe County, lost six young men during the Vietnam War. The men, all under 21, were killed in action between 1966 and 1971.
Beallsville is home to 475 people. The Vietnam deaths amounted to the largest per-capita loss of life for any U.S. community during the Vietnam War, county officials said.
A state historical marker in remembrance of that sacrifice has been placed in Veterans Memorial Community Park in Beallsville.
Webb, 22, graduated from Hamilton High in 2000. He died this week when a roadside bomb exploded near an American patrol southwest of Baghdad, the Army told his family.
He had enlisted shortly after graduation so that he could eventually go to college to become a teacher, said his sister-in-law, Vanessa Foreman.
Webb had come home for a two-week leave six weeks ago. He was scheduled to return from Iraq next July.
Rockhold, 23, a 1998 Hamilton High graduate, was shot by a sniper in May 2003 while directing traffic at a bridge in Baghdad.
Moore, 25, a 1996 graduate of Hamilton High, was accidentally shot in the back while conducting M-16 night fire training in February 2003 at Fort Hood, Army officials said.
Webb's death put a face on the war for Billy Brown, 17, who is in Hamilton High's Junior ROTC program. He has already enlisted in the Marine Corps and plans to leave in June after graduation.
"It kind of makes me angry. I know we're going to lose guys, but this, well, it hit home," Brown said of Webb's death. "I want to go there and fight for our country. The people who died over there -- I view them as heroes."
Ryan Fackey, 16, a classmate, said he plans to enlist in the Marines after college, as have four other generations of his family. His brother, Patrick, is serving in Iraq.
"Somebody has to defend our freedom," Fackey said. "In war, there will always be death. You pray for the best."