In an echo of Hollywood blockbuster 'Saving Private Ryan', a California family's third son is to return home from Iraq after his two brothers were killed in action. The Hubbard family lost its second son, Nathan Hubbard, 21, in Iraq on Wednesday - one of the 14 U.S. soldiers killed in a Black Hawk helicopter crash. Nathan's older brother Jared Hubbard, a marine, died in a roadside bomb explosion in Ramadi in 2004.
Now their third son, Jason, is to return from Iraq to be with the family, in a striking similarity with events in Steven Spielberg's 1998 war film 'Saving Private Ryan.'
The family was said to be taking the death of their second son "very hard" according to a police spokesperson. The soldier's father, Jeff Hubbard, is a retired 30-year veteran of the police department.
The helicopter went down during a nighttime mission in the Tamim province that surrounds Kirkuk, an oil-rich city 180 miles north of Baghdad. Nathan Hubbard was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, where officials said 10 of the soldiers killed in the crash were based.
Keith Butterfield, a family friend, said the Hubbards were worried for their sons but proud because they knew they were committed to going on behalf of their fallen brother. "There is nothing anyone can say to make it better, but it's good to know that there are other families that can help you cope," said Butterfield, who became close to the Hubbards after his own son died in Iraq last year. "It's bringing up the feelings of everyone else's loss, but we will be there for them."
Nathan and Jason Hubbard joined the Army together in 2005, shortly after their brother was killed. Their mother, Peggy, told the Fresno Bee newspaper in a 2005 interview that she believed Jason joined in part to protect Nathan after not being there to help Jared.
The brothers said at the time that they didn't worry about dying in the war. "People are going to be hurt, and people are going to be killed," Nathan Hubbard told the Bee. "That is a reality you have to accept, but not dwell on."