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Funeral for a friend

Sep-23-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

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MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune

Sgt. Jacob Demand didn't go with the rest of the Stryker brigade when it left for Iraq last November. After eight years in the Army, he'd done his part and was ready to move on to other things.

But then came the Pentagon's stop-loss order. By January, Demand was among 175 or so Stryker soldiers loaded on planes and sent to catch up with their buddies in Iraq.

He didn't complain when he landed in Mosul, and he went about his duties in the war zone with enthusiasm, his friends said at a memorial ceremony for him Wednesday at Soldiers Chapel at Fort Lewis.

They remembered the 29-year-old infantryman as a loving father, a bright, funny friend and a dedicated soldier.[...]

Sgt. Benjamin Herman said he was at Forward Operating Base Marez the day Demand arrived. Herman was there to greet him when he hopped off the truck after the short ride from Mosul Airfield.

It wasn't long before they were talking about the same old things they always talked about back at Fort Lewis: fish stories, hunting trips to Demand's native Eastern Washington, his kids.

"He loved to talk - man could he talk," Herman told the 200 or so people who crowded into Wednesday's ceremony.

"It was always good to be on duty with Jake. He could keep you entertained for hours."

Demand grew up in Palouse, Whitman County, and joined the Army fresh out of high school in 1995. After assignments in Saudi Arabia and Korea, he wound up at Fort Lewis in 2002 with the first Stryker brigade.

He is survived by his daughter, Reanne, 8, and sons Josh, 6, and Seth, 5, who live with their mother in Indiana. His mother, Charlene Baldwin, lives in Pullman, and his father, Keith, lives in Arizona.

Before Iraq, he was an infantryman assigned to Commanche Company of the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. But when he arrived in Mosul, the brigade assigned him to a different job - with the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment.

The scouts of Bronco Troop overcame their traditional misgivings about foot soldiers and welcomed their new comrade to the cavalry. He put his infantry skills to good use leading dismounted patrols near the Syrian border, around Tal Afar, in Mosul, and elsewhere.

His friends said he had a reputation for practical jokes.

Sgt. Michael Zarling, in an e-mail from Iraq, recalled how Demand got on the roof of the troop headquarters building one day and hit his buddies with a barrage of water balloons as they fueled their Strykers after a mission.

"No one was spared, from the platoon sergeant to the troop commander," Zarling wrote.

And his Super Soaker squirt gun was a big hit with local kids in the oppressive Iraqi heat.

"He was quick on his feet," Herman said, "and he knew how to make everybody laugh."


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