The deaths of two Fort Carson combat engineers in Afghanistan last week raised the war’s toll to 15 in October, making this month the deadliest for the post since American troops helped oust the Taliban in 2001 and invaded Iraq two years later.

Pfc. Kimble A. Han, 30, of Lehi, Utah, and Spc. Eric N. Lembke of Tampa, Fla., were killed Friday when their vehicle was hit with an explosive. Both were in the 569th Mobility Augmentation Company, 4th Engineers Battalion.

The previous highest number of casualties suffered in a single month by units from the post was 12 in July 2005.

About a third of Carson’s casualties in Afghanistan have been in the 4th Engineers Battalion. Trained to detect and defuse explosives, the group was transferred in May from Iraq’s waning violence to Afghanistan’s escalating threat.

Han, who joined the Army in Jan. 2008, was featured in a CNN story that aired in April about the transfer.

“I think we look forward to it,” Han told CNN. “I think we’ve been prepared. I think we’ve all done the training that’s necessary to accomplish the missions we have.”

Han’s wife and children live in Nevada, the Associated Press reported.

Lembke also joined the Army in January 2008 and was deployed to Iraq in February before being sent to Afghanistan in May.

Lembke left behind a wife, Mashalle and two children ages 7 and 3, family friend Janet Llamas of Colorado Springs told the Tampa Tribune.

A message left by the Gazette with Lembke’s brother and sister-in-law, Robert and Mary Lembke of Denver, was not immediately returned.

“His family was the most important thing to him,” his sister-in-law Mary Lembke of Denver told the Tribune. “As young as he was, he took very good care of his family.

Robert Lembke said their mother had taken his brother in as a foster child when Eric Lembke was 13. She adopted him when he was 17.

Both men had received numerous medals including the National Defense Service Medal.

Ten soldiers from the engineers battalion and 30 from Fort Carson have died in Afghanistan, all since June. The post has lost 285 soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.

In one week this month, the post lost 10 soldiers, including eight during a fierce daylong battle with Taliban fighters who were repulsed trying to overrun a remote outpost that American troops were set to abandon.

Monday, Staff Sgt. Glen Hale Stivison Jr., who died with three other Fort Carson soldiers while clearing roadside explosives in southern Afghanistan in an Oct 15 attack, was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs.

Pfc. Kimble A. Han Photo by Courtesy of Fort Carson

Spc. Eric N. Lembke Photo by Courtesy of Fort Carson