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East Texas Soldier Killed In Iraq

He's been fighting in Iraq for more than four months.  This weekend, the family of an East Texas soldier learns their loved one will not be coming home.  Private First Class James Lee Adair, 26 of Carthage was killed last week after he was hit by a road side bomb.  Adair was supposed to come home in September, when he and his wife are expecting their first child.

"My mother came to my room and told me two soldiers were at my front door, and I just knew," said Adair's Wife, Chelsea Adair.  "You just know."  It was just two days ago Chelsea learned her husband James, or "Lee" as they called him, was not coming home.

"I always knew that there was a possibility that this could happen, but the reality, you don't think it could happen," said Chelsea.  The news comes just two weeks before Chelsea and Lee would have celebrated their first anniversary, and two months before the birth of their first child, a baby girl.

"He would have been a wonderful father," said Chelsea.  "He was so excited about this.  He was supposed to come down in September when I'm due, and every time I talk to him he always talked about how excited he was."

"I made him call me Mom," said Adair's Mother-In-Law Andrea Nation.  Nation says Lee was like her own son.  Last month, Nation made a DVD filled with pictures of Chelsea and the baby and mailed it to Lee in Iraq.

"Believe it or not, he got it on Father's Day, and he called Chelsea and he goes 'I got to see the most wonderful pictures,'" said Nation.  "There is just nobody that could replace him, that can take this place in our hearts, but he will be remembered."  Remembered for his strength and his bravery, something Chelsea says she can't wait to tell their daughter Savory, who Lee named just before he died.

"They are doing a courageous thing," said Chelsea.  "I'm so proud of my husband.  I'm so proud of him."  Funeral arrangements are still pending for Private First Class James Adair. The family says they do not know when the body will be transported back to the states.

Molly Reuter, Reporting. mreuter@kltv.com