Ohioans killed in war honored

Associated Press

HAMILTON, Ohio

Three Ohio National Guard soldiers killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan were family men who would have done anything for their comrades, and the state “should have nothing but pride,” said a battalion commander working in Afghanistan.

The Wednesday attack in Maimanah, the capital of Faryab province, killed Sgt. 1st Class Shawn T. Hannon, 44, of Grove City; Capt. Nicholas J. Rozanski, 36, of Dublin; and Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey J. Rieck, 45, of Columbus. Four more members of their Ohio-based unit were wounded.

Their battalion commander, Lt. Col. Craig Baker of Pickerington, said, “Ohio lost three very, very good men — family men, well-trained soldiers, that were friends to us all,” Baker said. “They would have done anything for us.”

Hannon was chief legal counsel for the Ohio Department of Veterans Services. Rieck worked full time in the Guard’s Family Readiness office. Rozanski had enlisted in 2003 and previously deployed to Kosovo and Iraq.

The head of the Ohio National Guard, Maj. Gen. Deborah Ashenhurst, was escorting the soldiers’ remains back to the U.S., Guard spokesman James Sims said Saturday. Ashenhurst was visiting troops in Afghanistan when the men were attacked.