Michigan's band of brothers

Flip through any Michigan phone book and you'll find the likes of the 1/24th Marines.

Chuck McCall is a Ford assembly worker weighing a buyout. Jade Tanguay and Paul Kraus are a pair of Detroit cops. Rudy Mendoza of Newberry -- by way of Pontiac -- was stocking grocery shelves when he decided to join up because he was "sick of seeing things on TV and not doing anything myself."

When the unit ships out, it will be the largest single Marine Reserve deployment from Michigan in the war on terror.

The military is wary of releasing exact numbers, destinations or timetables, but the battalion's core is made up of more than 700 Michiganders, along with another few hundred from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Tennessee. This month, those men found themselves running through a realistic mock-up of an Iraqi village in the Mojave Desert -- humping 40 pounds or more of automatic weapons, miscellaneous gear and ammo in 110-degree heat.

Read the rest at the Detroit Free Press