Sgt. Jabraun S. Knox, 23, will be laid to rest Tuesday in Auburn, according to his family, following a 2 p.m. funeral at the World War II Victory Museum near Auburn. His widow, Courtney Knox, and his mother, Kelly Knox, spoke to reporters Thursday afternoon in Auburn.
Knox, a 2007 DeKalb High School graduate, was killed with another soldier Friday in Afghanistan by an enemy rocket which struck a supply of artillery shells.
“Jabraun is certainly a hero, and I am so glad that his story is able to be told,” Courtney Knox said.
Courtney Knox recalled her husband as a man always willing to help people, and said that he had been a wonderful father to their infant son, Braylon, in the short leave time available to him.
Most poignantly, she recalled Jabraun Knox's visit with them last month. As he left, he told his wife that they were in the “home stretch,” that he was more than halfway through his deployment and would be reunited with them soon.
Kelly Knox said her son was enormously proud of his military service, even to the point of unnerving her with his enthusiasm for being trained in more hazardous jobs.
“He was very proud to be in the military,” his mother recalled. “He never could say enough about it.”
Knox had served in the Army for more than three years and was based at Fort Lewis, Wash. The Auburn man recently returned to Afghanistan after a 15-day leave.
Knox had been stationed in Afghanistan since November 2011 with the First Battalion 377 Field Artillery Regiment, whose soldiers provide supporting fire for outlying posts and infantry movements.
