BAGHDAD (WOWT) - On this day in 2006, an Iowa native made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq.

40-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Paul Finken and two others were killed in a roadside bombing near Baghdad. The tragedy left his hometown of Earling, Iowa in mourning.

Finken graduated from Harlan High School in 1984 and West Point in 1989. He had been in Iraq for almost a year at the time of his death.

A close friend said at the time that as much as Finken loved the military, he loved his family even more — his wife and three daughters.

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