"BERLIN For most Germans, it was a rare even shocking scene. There, on television, were coffins holding the bodies of three soldiers, all in their early 20s, all killed in Afghanistan, all draped with the national flag.
"The soldiers, Martin Brunn, 23; Oleg Meiling, 21; and Alexander Schleiernick, 23, were memorialized July 2 at a service in Bad Salzungen, in the eastern state of Thuringia, where their armored infantry battalion has its headquarters. The three were killed in the Kunduz region, where most of Germany's 4,000 troops are based, bringing to nearly three dozen the number of German soldiers killed in Afghanistan.