Army Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow

Remember Our Heroes

Thirteen people were killed when an Army psychiatrist opened fire on soldiers at the Fort Hood Army base, including Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow. Here is a short profile:

Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow, 32, was helping train soldiers on how to help new veterans with paperwork and had felt safe on the Army post.

“He was on a base,” his wife, MaryKay DeCrow, said in a telephone interview from the couple’s home at Fort Gordon, Ga. Evans, Ga., where she hoped to be reunited with her husband once he finished his work at Fort Hood. “They should be safe there. They should be safe.”

His wife said she wanted everyone to know what a loving man he was. The couple have a 13-year-old daughter, Kylah.

“He was well loved by everyone,” she said through sobs. “He was a loving father and husband and he will be missed by all.”

Sgt. DeCrow’s father, Daniel DeCrow, of Fulton, Ind., said his son graduated high school in Plymouth, Ind., and married his high school sweetheart that summer before joining the Army. The couple moved near Fort Gordon about five years ago in 2000, he said.

About a year ago, his son was stationed in Korea for a year. When he returned to the U.S., the Army moved him to Fort Hood while he waited for a position to open up in Fort Gordon so he could move back with his wife and daughter, Daniel DeCrow said.

Mr. DeCrow said he talked to his son last week to ask him how things were going at Fort Hood.

“As usual, the last words out of my mouth to him were that I was proud of him,” he said. “That’s what I said to him every time –that I loved him and I was proud of what he was doing. I can carry that around in my heart.”