LABELLE, Fla. - The small community of LaBelle lost two heroes this week.

25-year-old Marine Staff Sergeant Christopher Strickland was killed in combat Wednesday in Afghanistan.

The day before on Tuesday, 39 year old Army Chief Warrant Officer Robert "Charlie" Hammett, Junior was killed in a bomb blast in Baghdad, Iraq.

'Charlie was kind of a perfectionist," explained Hammett's father, Robert Hammett, Sr.

He says there was no question his youngest son would join the Army and follow in his own footsteps.

After brief service with the Coast Guard Reserve, Charlie signed on with the Army in 1987.

"He just liked the military lifestyle and when you're a soldier, that's what you do, you serve your country," said Hammett.

Hammett, Jr. was serving his third tour of duty in Iraq. He was deployed before Thanksgiving and due to come home in eight months.

A husband and father to five little girls, Charlie still kept his own father in mind.

Hammett, Sr. received his last email from his son on Sunday. Part of it read:

"....We're helping the citizens to rebuild and shifting to a new fight. Can't talk to specifics....I get outside the wire a lot now, which I wanted. Up close and personal. The people remaining need a lot of help and we're doing an amazing job getting it to them and working to help them get going."

Before he signed off, Charlie wrote:

"...Our operational area is the roughest part of the rough. Almost everyone I work with has given their all and it's amazing to see them keep going with as many problems as we've had, this unit has gotten it done."

Hammett, Sr. had tears in his eyes as he read the email and said,"He was a soldier and he knew it could happen, that's what soldiers do. He was a professional soldier."

Not even twenty minutes down the road, another family is grieving.

On Tuesday, Beth Church lost her only son, 25-year-old Marine Staff Sgt. Christopher Strickland in combat.

He was serving his fifth tour of duty, this time in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan.

It was also Strickland's dream as a young man to serve his country and follow in his step-father's footsteps.

Church recalls the day she signed the papers for her then 17-year-old son, a recent high school graduate, to join the Marines.

"I said is this what you want to do and he said yes mama, I want to be a Marine and as I'm signing the papers, I'm crying my eyes out because I knew I just gave him away," said Church.

But that's what her son wanted. She says a child left that day, but a man returned home to her.

In the last e-mail he sent her, Christopher was planning a trip for her to visit him California when he returned home. He wanted her to see the life he built with his wife and three year old son.

It is a a trip that will never come.

"He's in a better place than we are and they're playing taps for him in heaven," said Church.

She still wears a gold necklace he bought for her after joining the Marines.

It's a soldier's mother's pendant that she wears everyday, "The gold hearts represent mother and the diamond, the strongest bond."

"I don't wear nothing else, It's my baby's...my baby gave it to me," she said as she clutched the small pendant.

A funeral service for Chief Warrant Officer Robert Hammett, Junior will be held in Arizona next Thursday, where he will be laid to rest.

Staff Sgt. Christopher Strickland will be laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. A memorial service is in the works in LaBelle for next Saturday.