Another Local Paper Uncovers Another U.S. Soldier Suicide in Iraq

Another Local Paper Uncovers Another U.S. Soldier Suicide in Iraq

By Greg Mitchell

Published: April 16, 2008 2:00 PM ET

NEW YORK In what has become a regular ritual, a local newspaper has reported the death of a U.S. soldier in Iraq -- officially described by the military as a "noncombat" fatality -- as, in fact, a suicide.

The rate of suicides among military personnel in Iraq, who are suffering from multiple tours of duty, has surged in the past two years. E and P has chronicled this phenomenon for much longer than that.

In the latest case, John Brewer of the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press reports on the death of Spc. Jacob J. Fairbanks, 22, who hailed from that city, last week while serving in Iraq, six months into his second tour of duty there with the Army.

The military says only that it is under investigation -- and that's where the reporting generally stops -- but the family of Fairbanks, 22, said the Army told them their son died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

"Part of my soul and heart is gone," said his mother, Janette Fairbanks, in the Pioneer Press story. "Part of me will be sad forever. My baby's gone." He leaves behind a wife and child and three step-children.

Fairbanks, a field artilleryman assigned to the 1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, was on his second tour in Iraq and was stationed in Baghdad.

Another soldier with the 101st Airborne, Shane Penley, age 19, also died last week from wounds suffered while stationed at a guard post. That, too, is "under investigation."

Fairbanks was a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. His wife told family she had spoken with her husband via webcam for three hours before his death, and it was a "positive" conversation.

His mother said to Brewer: "I don't want any soldier to get killed over there, but why did it happen to my son? I just don't think it should have been him. He had his whole life ahead of him."
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Greg Mitchell probes the little-covered suicide surge in his new book "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundit -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq."


Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003790386

While I can respect any families right to privacy when it comes to the death of a loved one, I cannot respect it if they feel ashamed. How can any of them feel ashamed of a soldier, usually wounded by PTSD, who commits suicide? Are they buying into the stigma of PTSD instead of fighting against it? Do they understand that keeping silent on the suffering of their loved one, wounded by PTSD, is keeping others from getting the help they need? The only shame in any of this is with us, all of us. We didn't take care of them when they came back from Vietnam and we don't take care of the wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan now. It isn't their fault they were wounded any more than it would be their fault if a bullet went through them or a bomb blew up near them. It is a wound. Fairbanks was on his second tour of duty. There was no shame in him. There should be no shame in us for him. We should only be ashamed of ourselves this keeps happening.