The deaths brought to seven the number of state Guard troops killed over three days, including at least six from the Philadelphia region.

No comparable burst of military casualties has hit Pennsylvania since Feb. 25, 1991, when a Scud missile launched by Iraqi forces during the Gulf War killed 13 soldiers from an Army Reserve unit in Greensburg.

"It still hasn't sunk in, to lose a child this way," said Jim Kulick, father of Spec. John N. Kulick, 35, a Whitpain Township firefighter who left a 9-year-old daughter.

Family members identified two others killed in the attacks as Spec. Gennaro Pellegrini Jr., 31, a Philadelphia policeman and part-time boxer, and Pfc. Nathaniel "Nate" DeTample, 19, of Morrisville, a 2004 Pennsbury High School graduate who had enrolled in Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. A military official who asked not to be named said that Francis J. Straub, 24, a sergeant from Philadelphia who had worked for United Parcel Service, also was killed.

All were members of Alpha Company of the First Battalion of the 111th Infantry, which trains at an armory on Southampton Road. The unit has about 150 soldiers.

The identity of the fifth slain soldier, who was from northern Pennsylvania, was not immediately available.

Lt. Col. Philip J. Logan, a Pennsylvania guardsman in command of Task Force Dragoon, which includes Alpha Company, said in an e-mail to The Inquirer last night that a company patrol had fought off an attack by insurgents on one of its vehicles. In addition to the deaths, several members were wounded, he said.

"Please pray for my soldiers and the families who have lost loved ones over the past week," Logan wrote. "The troopers of TF Dragoon are resolved to continue this fight. We will prevail. "

First official word of the Guard deaths came at midday yesterday from Gov. Rendell as he spoke at an unrelated event at the state Capitol. With more than 3,000 troops in Iraq, the Pennsylvania National Guard has been "relatively lucky" - until this last week, he said.

"Seven guardsmen in less than four days - it brings home the crushing reality of this war," Rendell said.

The Tuesday attacks followed a roadside bombing Saturday in which two other members of Alpha Company were killed: Sgt. Brahim Jeffcoat, 25, of North Philadelphia, and Spec. Kurt Krout, 43, of Spinnerstown, Bucks County.

Officials in Baghdad said the American troops were ambushed late Tuesday as it patrolled in Beiji, northwest of Baghdad. Logan said the attack happened early yesterday.

Insurgents set off a road bomb and then attacked the company with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, the officials said.

Details of the fight and injuries were still murky last night. But the Associated Press, in a report from Beiji, quoted local police as saying that two humvees and a larger armored vehicle were left wrecked and burned. Logan said only one vehicle was attacked.

"We heard sounds of explosion about 11 p.m., followed by heavy shooting," a farmer told the wire service.

The fifth of the five Pennsylvania Guardsmen slain Tuesday was killed in a separate incident, an official said. No details were made available.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq said he could give no casualty reports or details of an attack until 24 hours after family members of the affected soldiers had been notified.

The Pennsylvania Guard took a similar position, and said it could not comment before a news conference at 1 p.m. today at the Plymouth Meeting headquarters of the First Battalion of the 111th Infantry. A report of the attack on Alpha Company is expected then.

Additionally, a Guard unit in Williamsport, Pa., has set a news conference for 1 p.m. today for the fifth soldier who died.

Names of soldiers killed in the attacks came yesterday from employers, family members, and others who had heard of them.

Kulick's father said his son called home Tuesday before leaving on his last mission. The deaths Saturday of two fellow guardsmen from his unit had prompted the phone call, Jim Kulick said.

"He was telling me it was OK," said the father, 61, of Rockledge. "Two of his buddies got killed on Saturday, and he was trying to get through to let me know he was OK. "

Krout and Jeffcoat were killed Saturday near Samarra, Iraq, in which insurgents set off 122mm artillery shells, wired together, as an Alpha Company convoy passed by. Three other soldiers wounded in that attack were recovering.

Alpha Company, a unit of ordinarily part-time Guard soldiers from around the Philadelphia area, is stationed in Iraq at Forward Operating Base Summerall, outside of Beiji.

Capt. Anthony Callum, the company commander, said this week that the unit was responsible for patrolling two small towns - As-Siniyah and As-Siliyah - and the desert area west of them.

On Saturday, a four-vehicle convoy had gone to get supplies at Camp Anaconda, near Balad. The convoy was hit on the way back.

Reports yesterday said the company had been investigating earlier explosions when it was hit again Tuesday.

The soldiers of Alpha Company were mobilized from civilian life June 28 last year. They spent six months in stateside training - at Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort Polk, La. - before going to Iraq in December.

Callum said this week that all his vehicles were equipped with factory-made armor kits. Military experts said the type of bomb that had hit an Alpha Company humvee Saturday was so big that only an Abrams tank, the Army's principal combat tank, would have withstood it.

The company commander said Monday that 19 of his men had been wounded as of then.

Callum, of Bucks County, was home on a two-week leave when the Saturday attack occurred. He headed back Tuesday, but as of yesterday, had not reached Iraq to rejoin his men.

"I have just arrived in Kuwait," he said in an e-mail.

Yesterday, at the armory on Southampton Road, there was little sign of the tragedy that had befallen Alpha Company.

Jogging at lunchtime, Sgt. First Class Tom Alessi said, "People are grieving, but what can we do? The flag is flying at half-mast. It happens in war. What are you going to do? No one is happy about it. Grief is grief. Everyone reacts differently. "

A saxophone, flute and clarinet player in the band, Alessi, 55, of Pottstown, said that buglers would be sent to each man's funeral.

"We play when they leave and we play when they come back," he said.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Contact staff writer Tom Infield at 610-313-8205 or tinfield@phillynews.com.

Staff writers Carrie Budoff, Thomas A. Gibbons Jr., Leslie A. Pappas and Marc Schogol contributed to this article.