FORT DRUM - The kidnapping of three 10th Mountain Division soldiers by terrorists in Iraq will only work to unite America and strengthen the military's determination, soldiers at Fort Drum said Tuesday.

“If this is a scare tactic to undermine our resolve, they need to realize our soldiers are trained killers and don't scare,” said Spc. Dorothy Drake, of Los Angeles, Calif.

“This is more incentive to finish the job. The Army is family. This will bring us together. It will bring the country together,” said Drake, who returned in February from a year-long tour in Afghanistan.

Army officials said Tuesday the seven American victims of a pre-dawn ambush in Iraq on Saturday were members of the 10th Mountain Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team.

Late Tuesday, the Pentagon identified three of the dead soldiers as Sgt. 1st Class James Connell Jr., 40, of Lake City, Tenn.; Pfc. Daniel Courneya, 19, of Nashville, Mich.; and Pfc. Christopher Murphy, 21, of Lynchburg, Va.

It listed four soldiers as duty status whereabouts unknown - Sgt. Anthony Schober, 23, of Reno, Nev.; Spc. Alex Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Mass.; Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr., 20, of Torrance, Calif.; and Pvt. Byron Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich.

Fort Drum spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick said the Army had not yet positively identified one of the four dead soldiers and had listed him among the missing.

Military officials notified Anzack's family Sunday that he was missing.

“We're praying that he's alive,” his aunt Debbie Anzack said. The military told the family that DNA test results were expected as early as Wednesday.

Nevada National Guard officials met with Schober's mother and stepfather Tuesday in Carson City, said guard spokesman Eric Ritter. The military did not release her name, but said she was from Carson City and not yet ready to talk with media.

“They're absolutely filled with hope that he's still alive,” Ritter told The Associated Press.

A friend of Fouty's, Cathy Conger of Oakland County's Commerce Township, said the soldier lived with her family for 14 months, during which time he earned his GED and enlisted in the Army.

“I'm just devastated,” said Conger, 49. “He doesn't deserve this.”

Fitzpatrick said the soldiers were from Company D, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment - nicknamed the “Polar Bears.” The missing soldiers were all men, he said. The division currently has 3,500 troops fighting in Iraq.

More than 4,000 U.S. troops - including a large component from the 10th Mountain Division - searched again for the missing soldiers Tuesday while U.S. aircraft dropped leaflets seeking information about them. The Islamic State of Iraq - an al-Qaida front group that has claimed to have captured the soldiers - warned the U.S. to halt its search.

“Everyone here is concerned,” said Sgt. Bryan Flinner, a six-year veteran who returned home early from deployment to Afghanistan because of a head injury.

“Even if you don't know a soldier personally, there's always a connection because of what we do. It's frustrating but there's nothing we can do back here,” Flinner said as he was leaving a military supply store off post.

Pvt. Ernie Rodriguez, 19, of Sacramento, Calif., had just heard about his missing military brethren. Rodriguez is awaiting his first deployment but the kidnappings had done nothing to change his mind about his job.

“We need to stay concentrated on our training. This just motivates me more to be the best soldier I can be,” he said.

If all three soldiers now missing were taken alive, it would be the biggest single abduction of U.S. soldiers in Iraq since March 23, 2003, when Pvt. Jessica Lynch and six others were captured in an ambush near Nasiriyah that also left 11 Americans dead.

“We are fortunate that we have had few incidents of our soldiers not immediately being accounted for,” Fitzpatrick said of the attack in a Sunni stronghold 20 miles south of Baghdad. “But it's been the unfortunate experience that soldiers who have been captured have not all turned out well. We are hoping this turns out to be an exception.”

Last June, al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the deaths of two U.S. soldiers whose mutilated bodies were later found in the same area.

Fitzpatrick said the Army has sent representatives to join family vigils for the missing soldiers.

“The feelings of our soldiers and their families are similar to the feelings of the nation at this moment,” Fitzpatrick said. “It creates deep concern and anxiety.”

The 2nd Brigade Combat Team is in the 10th month of a 15-month tour in Iraq. The brigade was also deployed to Iraq in 2005.

The division also currently has a brigade in Afghanistan. The brigade's advance team arrived at Fort Drum Tuesday to begin preparations for the brigade's return home beginning in June.

The 10th Mountain Division made its reputation in World War II, when soldiers scaled a sheer, 1,500-foot cliff under cover of darkness and fought their way through the snowy mountains of northern Italy in 1945. That spearheaded the drive that would liberate the country from the Nazis.

The 10th Mountain was the Army's most frequently deployed division during the 1990s, serving in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere.

One of its most famous exploits, the daring rescue of ambushed Army Rangers in 1993 Mogadishu, was chronicled in the best-selling book and movie, “Black Hawk Down.”

The division's members became the first regular U.S. ground troops to be sent to Central Asia as part of American's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In the early phases of the war in Afghanistan, the division routed the Taliban from the Shah-e-Kot mountains during the highly touted “Operation Anaconda.”