Saving Jason Hubbard

A US soldier is being sent home after both his brothers were killed in Iraq, in a tragedy that echoes the Hollywood film Saving Private Ryan.Jason Hubbard is returning to his family in Clovis, California, after his brother Nathan, an army specialist, was killed alongside 13 others on Wednesday when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in northern Iraq.The family's eldest son, 22-year-old Marine Lance Corporal Jared Hubbard, died in a roadside bomb explosion in downtown Ramadi in 2004.Nathan and Jason Hubbard joined the army together in 2005, after their brother was killed.Under the US military "sole survivor" policy, the last remaining sibling in a war zone can ask to return home when his brothers or sisters have been killed.The regulations are designed to spare parents losing all their children to war.The US War Department introduced the policy after five siblings, the Sullivan brothers, died when their light cruiser the USS Juneau was sunk in the Second World War.The helicopter carrying Nathan went down during a night mission in the Tamim province that surrounds Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad.A military spokesman said facts gathered indicated it was almost certainly due to a mechanical problem and not hostile fire, although the final cause remains under investigation.Senior Pastor Tim McLain Rolen, from Clovis, said the Hubbards are in shock after suffering a second death resulting from the Iraq war."They're shocked, they're stunned. The fact that they've been through it before doesn't prepare you for it again," he said.© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

ITN | August 24, 2007

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