
MAPLE VALLEY, Wash. — Family and friends of Sgt. Jeffrey Shaver mourned the 26-year-old medic over the weekend, remembering him as a gregarious young man who had a knack for putting people at ease.
A member of the Washington National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 161st Infantry Regiment, out of Spokane, Shaver was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near Baghdad on May 12, a few months into his yearlong tour of duty in Iraq.
He was the first Washington National Guardsman killed in combat since the Korean War.
Shaver graduated from Newport High School in Newport, Pend Oreille County, in 1997. After graduation, he moved to the Spokane area and became a fitness...