Police officer and a soldier on his third wartime deployment were identified Tuesday as the two members of the Illinois National Guard killed

Downstate police officer and a soldier on his third wartime deployment were identified Tuesday as the two members of the Illinois National Guard killed over the weekend in Afghanistan.First Lt. Jared Southworth, 26, a police officer in the central Illinois town of Oakland, was known for his poise even when he was an ROTC cadet at Eastern Illinois University.Staff Sgt. Jason Burkholder, 27, who recently transferred from Ohio, was a former active-duty Marine who had taken part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and served a second deployment there as a Guardsman before moving on to Afghanistan.The two were killed Sunday when a roadside bomb exploded while they helped stanch the poppy trade in Helmand province in southwest Afghanistan.
Southworth and Burkholder were assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry, based in Marion, Ill. They were the fourth and fifth Illinois soldiers killed since the state sent 2,700 guard troops to Afghanistan in recent months. Staff Sgt. Jason Vazquez and Spec. Joshua Harris were killed in a blast in September, and Staff Sgt. Kevin Grieco died in October.Five other Illinois troops were wounded on Jan. 17 when a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy in Kabul, the Afghan capital. Among the wounded troops was Simone Robinson, 21, a single mother from Robbins. An Army spokeswoman said the soldier was still in critical condition Tuesday in the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, where family members have said she was being treated for severe burns, an amputated leg and a skull fracture.Southworth was one of three police officers in Oakland, a town of 1,000 just north of Charleston, Ill.