Published: August 20, 2008 10:30 am         

Widow receives more ashes of Iraq casualty

Stillwater soldier died in March bombing

DNA testing has helped return part of a soldier’s body to his wife in Stillwater.

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Christopher M. Hake and three other soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad in March. Most of his body was returned to his family for the funeral, but three fingers and his legs from the knees down were missing, said his wife, Kelli.

On Monday, two Army sergeants first class returned the ashes of one leg to Kelli.

The Army contacted her recently with the news that it had identified one of her husband’s legs through his DNA. She asked that they cremate the remains and send them to her, she said.

“It’s kind of a sigh of relief,” she said, “and another bringing everything up again.”

Mrs. Hake and their son, Gage Christopher Michael, moved to Stillwater to be near her family and are in the process of selling their house in Georgia, where Hake had been stationed at Fort Stewart. He left for his second deployment to Iraq in October 2007.

He had been scheduled to return to the United States in July for R&R. His birthday was Sunday.

“It’s kind of weird to have his birthday yesterday and today this,” Mrs. Hake said Monday evening.

     

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