Spc. Jake Fairbanks and the family left behind

St. Paul soldier's blended family shattered by horrors of war

Specialist Jake Fairbanks, with daughter Kayla. He had complained to his wife that he was missing all of Kayla’s “firsts” and that he couldn’t believe how fast she was growing up.

By NICK COLEMAN, Star Tribune

Last update: April 26, 2008 - 10:34 PM

Dwan Fairbanks was at her supervisor's job at the Best Buy store in Clarksville, Tenn., near the sprawling Fort Campbell Army base when her cell phone rang. Her husband, Jake, was in Iraq, in the middle of his second combat deployment. Her four children were at home, enjoying a day off from school.


It was Fairbanks' 9-year-old daughter, Katelin, calling. Two soldiers in "Army greens," the uniform worn on official occasions, had come to the door. Obeying their mother's instructions for when they were home alone, the kids did not answer the door. The soldiers went away.
They would be back.

Jacob Fairbanks would be the 4,027th American to die. On April 9, the Army says, he died of "non-combat" injuries. His death is under investigation by the Army, but news organizations have reported Jake's death as a self-inflicted gunshot. As many as one in five returning Iraq veterans are suffering from post-traumatic stress, and suicide rates among members of the military have soared. Dwan Fairbanks says she is convinced such "accusations" of suicide, as she calls them, are not true in her husband's case.

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