TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Julia Wilburn on May 5, 2026

Retired Colonel Karen Victoria Fair of Alcoa died April 6 at age 62. Fair graduated with honors from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point University in 1985 and immediately began her Army career. She was a decorated veteran with over 25 years of leadership, including service as general counsel for Commanding General First Armored Division in Wiesbaden, Germany, and strategist and later division chief to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. She served as a deputy general counsel in Iraq during “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” She was appointed by the Pentagon as litigation manager and led a team that successfully prosecuted soldiers for the human rights violations in the highly publicized Abu Ghraib scandal. Fair graduated on the Commandant’s List as a top scholar in international and operational law from The Judge Advocate General’s Legal School at the University of Virginia Law School, and she received the James L. Powers Award for Highest Excellence in Trial Advocacy while completing her law degree at the University of Tennessee (now Winston) College of Law. Services were held April 15.