Last fall we spent a lot of time detailing the preparation of the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team as they prepared for a deployment in Iraq.

It is dangerous duty.

Yesterday, we learned all too well just how dangerous.

The Pentagon confirmed that a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard unit had been killed in action in Iraq.

Staff Sgt. Mark Baum, from Quakertown, Bucks County, was killed by small arms fire as he responded to word of an improvised explosive device explosion in Mushada, Iraq.

Baum was 32 years old. He was married and had three small kids. He was a Bucks County corrections officer. But he still felt the need to serve his country. That’s why he signed up for National Guard duty. It was that sense of service that led him to Iraq.

Baum’s death was the first fatality for the 56th Stryker Brigade, which arrived in Iraq last month for a nine-month deployment.

We talked to several Delaware County men who are members of the Stryker Brigade, which is based in Phoenixville.

Lt. Mark O’Hanlon, the leader of the 700-man unit, is from Nether Providence. Like Baum, he also left another life behind, one that includes a wife and kids.

Last summer, when we interviewed O’Hanlon about the dangers he and his men would face in Iraq, he made some prescient comments.

“There is a lot of concern about IEDs,” he said. “That is the No. 1 mechanism for the enemy to injure or kill my soldiers.”

Today those words haunt.

Do not forget the men of the 56th Stryker Brigade and the dangerous mission in which they are involved.

Today we offer a salute to Staff Sgt. Mark Baum, a true citizen soldier who gave his life protecting the rights and lifestyle so many of us take for granted.