INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Three Indiana National Guard soldiers have died in Iraq in the past week and a fourth lies wounded in one of the deadliest weeks in years for the state’s Guard units.

Sgt. Brian K. Miller, 37, of Pendleton died Saturday from injuries he suffered in a vehicle rollover during combat operations in Abd Allah.

Two other Hoosier guardsmen — Sgt. Gary Henry, a 34-year-old Indianapolis firefighter, and Spc. Jonathan Menke, 22, of Madison — died Monday when a roadside bomb detonated under their vehicle near Baghdad.

A third soldier in that vehicle, 25-year-old Spc. John Blickenstaff of the north-central Indiana town of Twelve Mile, was injured and was listed in “very serious” condition.

All four of the soldiers were on their first tour of duty in Iraq and were scheduled to return home early next year.

Indiana Adjutant General Major General R. Martin Umbarger said Henry, Menke and Blickenstaff were part of the Guard’s 38th Military Police Company out of Danville and were deployed to Iraq to train the Iraqi police.

Umbarger said the three men were “kind of the best of the best ... great discipline, a great attitude and a can-do spirit.”

National Guard spokesman Staff Sgt. Jeff Lowry speculated that Miller may have died in a vehicle rollover when he swerved to miss what he thought was a roadside bomb.

“There’s a lot of debris and a lot of trash in the road, and for soldiers to have to make spot-on decisions like that is awfully tough,” Lowry said.

Miller was a vehicle mechanic who had served 19 years in the Indiana National Guard. He was part of the 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team’s 3,400-troop deployment to Iraq in March. Lowry said the brigade was expected to be there for about a year with the mission of convoy support and security.

Henry, who was married and had three children, was a 12-year veteran of the Indianapolis Fire Department and worked as a special operations rescue coordinator, said Fire Capt. Gregg Harris.

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard remembered Henry as “a good man.”

In southern Indiana, Dan Menke of Madison said Tuesday that he was notified Monday that his son, a 2005 graduate of Madison Consolidated High School, had died in the roadside bombing.

Jonathan Menke had been an honor roll student with a booming voice that wowed audiences who saw him perform in “Beauty and the Beast” his senior year, his father said.

Dan Menke said his son joined the Indiana National Guard in March 2004 in his junior year in high school. During basic training, he found that he had a booming voice and he put it to good use when the guys would sing in their barracks during their off-duty time.