S
ShawnaAnn
Guest
Think of Jimmy Fair as a casualty of war, foreign and domestic.
The Army specialist from Coraopolis, a combat engineer, had planned a military career until Nov. 12, 2003, when he was stringing barbed wire around an ammunition supply point in Fallujah, Iraq. The crew took a break and, walking back, stumbled onto a makeshift enemy bomb.
The blast took Fair's eyesight and both hands. Shrapnel tore through his right leg, where pieces remain, fractured his face and injured his brain.
Fair, 23, doesn't remember the accident, nor what he was doing when it happened. He says simply, "I was blown up."
"He was basically just on a work detail and got caught," said Maj. Jeff Buczkowski, public affairs officer at Fort Riley, Kan., home to Fair's former unit, the 1st Engineer Battalion. Assigned to the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, they had been overseas only two months.
In that unit, which returned to the U.S. last fall, James Matthew Fair was elite. He was a "sapper," trained as a leader of teams that defuse mines and explosives. It's not clear whether Fair was trying to disarm the bomb.
Now, the soldier who cleared obstacles for troops at war faces enormous barriers -- physical, emotional and legal -- to rebuild his life.
When Fair lost his sight and forearms, he lost the ability to work and live independently, at least for now. Facing divorce, he has paid thousands of dollars toward lawyers' fees and familial obligations. His wife lives in the Kansas house purchased with part of a $60,000 gift from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, a Mt. Lebanon native who started the Fallen Patriots Fund for combat-wounded veterans.
Fair's Greensburg attorney, Deborah Jackson, said her client didn't benefit from the money, the largest of Cuban's 56 grants, which was deposited in a Kansas Federal Credit Union account.
"We have yet to figure out where the money went," Jackson said. "I did request an accounting from the credit union where his pay was being deposited. There were large withdrawals."
"I feel terrible," said attorney Brian Cuban, who administers the fund for his brother. "If the money is not being used to help him pay his bills, that is very disturbing. ... I can't promise we can do anything, but we're going to look into it."
Kansas attorney Grant Bannister, who represents Fair's wife, Katrina, did not return calls requesting an interview. The couple separated in August 2004, about six weeks after moving into the Ogden, Kan., house where Katrina Fair lives with their three toddlers. Fair came back to Pittsburgh to live with his mother.
No regrets
Fair is among 16 soldiers from Western Pennsylvania classified as severely or very severely disabled from hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the VA Regional Office in Pittsburgh. The Defense Department counts more than 6,800 wounded American troops since 2001, with injuries ranging from minor to disabling.
Advances in battlefield medicine and body armor are saving more lives, but suicide attacks and roadside bombs are increasing the number of troops who have lost limbs. The trauma makes readjustment to civilian life doubly difficult, said David McPeak, a team leader psychologist with the Pittsburgh Vet Center in Green Tree.
"You have to mourn your losses in the beginning, get some support and move on," McPeak said. "War is an extra burden in life, and being disabled is an extra, extra burden. With a loss like this, it's just really overwhelming."
Fair had been in the Army for four years and three months when the bomb went off. After emergency surgery in Iraq, he was flown to a hospital in Germany and then to the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He stayed there until April 2004, when he was transferred for a two-month stay at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis that specializes in treating head injuries.
Fair still needs more corrective surgery on his nose; his sinuses were damaged along with his cheek and eye socket. His right eye is missing, and he lost all sight in his left eye while at Walter Reed. He takes four types of medication -- an antidepressant and three strong painkillers.
"We try to keep his spirits up. He's got his down points, but he'll tell you no," said his mother, Lonnie Mosco. "A lot of people don't realize the extent of his injuries until they see them.
"I tell him all the time, at least he's got his life," she said. "I'd much rather have him back the way he is, than to not have him back at all."
Two or three medical appointments -- home visits, or trips to the VA Medical Center -- fill each week. In between doctors' examinations and therapy sessions, Fair spends much of his time listening to television or talking with his stepfather, Scott Mosco, and his home health aide, Lynn Fortson.
"I hate ..." Fair begins, but stops himself. "I'm used to working. I'm not used to sitting around."
"He's been through so much," said Fortson, who works for Bayada Nurses in Edgewood. "He's a good kid. I think I'd be so angry. When I first came here, I expected to see a really depressed guy, but he's smart. He talks to me about a lot of things."
Fair's rehabilitation is frustrating and painful. He is just learning to use a cane but can't hold utensils to feed himself. He can put on a shirt, using his upper arms. He doesn't like the hooks on his prosthetic arms. With no sense of touch, he can't learn braille or feel his way around the house. The family hopes the landlord will allow some interior modifications.
"We're doing it step by step, to see what he can and can't do, to see what will work," said Linda Csech, Fair's occupational therapist from the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System in Oakland. "He is (making progress). It's just slow because of all the complexities."
Csech has contacted companies in Colorado and Texas that manufacture specialty products for amputees and will try to find utensils that Fair can use, along with a device to hold a fishing rod. Once he learns the basics of using prosthetics, he might be fitted with a different type to replace the hooks, she said.
Despite it all, Fair doesn't regret his wartime service.
"I know it was my job; I had to do it," he said. "When I was in the hospital, I asked when I was going back. I wanted to go back."
He still knows joys -- the feel of sunshine on his face or grass beneath his feet; the scent of his sister Angie's infant son when he falls asleep in Fair's lap, and the laughter of his 3-year-old nephew.
"I'm not an invalid. I can get up and walk around," he said. "I'm still alive."
A new reality
Lonnie Mosco describes her son as a loner while growing up, a kid who preferred playing at home with cousins. He liked to draw, and build model cars. He likes grilled cheese sandwiches -- even more now, because it's the one food item he can hold with his prosthetic.
"He was a good kid," she said -- except for one incident that still makes Fair smile. As a senior at Schenley High School, Fair got into a fight and was expelled.
"He hit me first," said Fair, who graduated in 1999 after taking night classes and summer school.
A school guidance counselor suggested that Fair meet with an Army recruiter, who convinced him to enlist. At first, he didn't like it.
"I think it was pretty much the fact that I was away from home, and people were yelling at me all the time," he said. But after basic training, he grew to love it. "I liked the discipline. I came back and Mom saw a huge difference in me."
The Pentagon called Fair's mother when her son was hurt, and President Bush twice visited him at Walter Reed. But only one friend from the Army has contacted Fair, and only once. He'd like to get a voice-activated computer, to search the Internet for Army buddies or other wounded vets.
A pal from high school took Fair to dinner a few times after he returned to Pittsburgh last August, but they've since lost touch. Fair dated his friend's sister before joining the Army, and tried to start a new relationship with her. A few weeks ago, they argued and his temper scared her away, he said.
"Since the head injury, when I get upset and start yelling at people, I don't know how to stop," Fair said. "I'm getting help. I'm seeing a psychologist."
He wonders if he could be a candidate for a hand transplant, or tissue transplant surgery on the detached and scarred retina of his left eye. Both types of transplant surgery are still experimental and rarely performed in the United States.
His family provides emotional support.
"Jimmy's my inspiration," said his grandmother, Vaunda Barnhart, of Chicora, Butler County, who is battling cancer. "We'll deal with what we have. This isn't something we can't lick. I'm proud of him."
Fair's cousin, Barb DeMar, of Brighton Heights, worries that "everybody tries to be easy on him, instead of how they used to treat him." She tries to treat him no differently, even though she thinks Fair's experiences have changed him.
"He used to wear his heart on his sleeve," said DeMar, Fair's best friend growing up. "I don't really see that anymore. I think he's just trying to cope with his life. I think he's a complete fighter, though. If that were me, I don't think I could do that."
Fair and his wife no longer talk, and he hasn't seen the children, ages 3, 2 and 1. The couple met through a friend in a bar, and were married in September 2002. He suspected the marriage wouldn't last, because they often argued.
"After we got married, we fought all the time, (about) stupid stuff," he said. "I was too involved with my work. She didn't have a job."
Looking forward
Fair receives pensions from Veterans Affairs and Social Security. The government also pays for his medical care and therapists.
Until the divorce is final, Fair pays the $800 monthly mortgage on the house in Kansas, and $400 a month for a car he owned before he was married and wants to give to his mother. He also pays $700 monthly in temporary child support. A judge in Kansas denied his request for DNA testing, in a dispute over the paternity of the two younger children.
Fair is eager to move on with his life.
"I just try to focus on what's going on now," he said. "There's no sense dwelling on the past. I want to do all my rehab, so that I can go to college."
Ron Shroyer, vocational rehabilitation counselor with the VA Regional Office, Downtown, said the agency will do whatever it takes to help combat veterans readjust and live as independently as possible. That includes grants for adaptive housing, wide-ranging educational assistance and vocational training when possible.
"We have to make sure that a veteran is medically stable first," Shroyer said. "Sometimes this does not take overnight. We work together with the VA Medical Center to make sure all these services are provided."
Fair acknowledges he has years of hard work ahead.
Once he thought of working in criminal justice, after an Army career. He now yearns to become a counselor who works with disabled children. He is delighted by his nephews, who live with sister Angie, 21, in Lawrenceville. His younger sister, Sandra, is 10. "I like children," Fair said. "Kids keep people busy."
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