New Hampshire Army National Guard Sgt. Philip Tirrell is no stranger to Iraq. He drove the trucks that supplied - and sometimes even raced ahead of - American tanks battling their way toward Basra in 1991.

But as his unit, the 744th Transportation Company, prepares to ship out for Iraq again, more than a decade later, Sergeant Tirrell and the 20 other veterans of Desert Storm in his unit are anxious that this tour of duty in the sands of the Middle East may be far worse.

Many of these part-time soldiers - used car salesmen, truck drivers, and, like Tirrell, firefighters in civilian life - are worried about an enemy they can't see, in a war that has none of the usual defined boundaries. "There's still an enemy, and it's an unknown enemy," says Tirrell, a father of three.

Their fears are shared by many of the more than 50,000 reservists and National Guard troops mobilized for duty this month to replace units now on the ground in Iraq. In a guerrilla war that doesn't discriminate between combat and support troops, they are in as much danger as the infantry on patrol.

It doesn't help that many of the soon-to-be warriors have been watching the hostilities unfold on television, in all their grim detail. This past weekend alone, three soldiers were killed when their convoys were attacked in separate incidents. Preliminary accounts indicate the bodies of two soldiers were mutilated after being dragged from a car near Mosul.

So along with pride and worries about the families and jobs they leave behind comes the inevitable concern about what lies ahead. From the cabins of the 744th's tractor trailers, the biggest worry is ambushes and road side bombs that kill American soldiers every week.

Six days after mobilization calls came earlier this month, the unit's 128 men and 12 women gather from around the state at the National Guard headquarters here. The armory looks like a high school gym. But inside are reminders that this isn't the senior prom. Underneath the basketball hoops, soldiers pickup dog tags and gas masks, update wills, and give DNA samples that will help identify them if they don't make it back. There's even a table where spouses who double as Mary Kay representatives sell baskets soldiers can pre-order to arrive on holidays and birthdays.

Their mobilization didn't come as a surprise. Though they are the first New Hampshire National Guard unit sent to Iraq this year, they were alerted for possible duty on, of all moments, Valentine's Day and monitored the war from home, aware they could soon be on television instead of the ones watching it.

But the alert was withdrawn after four months, and they reverted to their full-time civilian lives as prison guards, auto mechanics, car salesman, and masons. They range in experience from basic-training rookies to Sgt. Roger Gingrich, who will be deploying to his third war.

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