Funerals begin for slain soldiers

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. The Daily News of Jacksonville reports 39-year-old Spc. Robert L. Bittiker of Jacksonville will be laid to rest Wednesday morning. The service will be held at Jones Funeral Home in Jacksonville and he will be buried with military honors.

Bittiker and three other soldiers were in a vehicle that was hit by the roadside bomb June 29 in Baghdad.

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The soldiers were members of the National Guard's 120th Combined Arms Battalion in Wilmington.

His obituary said Bittiker enlisted in the National Guard in 1990 and previously served in Bosnia and Iraq. He worked for Morton Trucking Company and owned a taxi in Jacksonville.