Grand Praire, TX. Rebecca Morrison with some of her husband Ian's belongings in her parents homes. Ian, an AH-64 Apache Helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army committed suicide on March 21, 2012. Ian chose 'Ike' for Rebecca.
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Michael McCaddon was an Army brat born into a uniquely edgy corner of the service: his father served in an ordnance-disposal unit, and after his parents divorced, his mother married another bomb-squad member. McCaddon entered the family business, enlisting at 17. "When I joined the Army I was 5'10" and weighed 129 lbs," he blogged years later. "I had a great body ... for a girl." But basic training made him stronger and tougher; he pushed to get the top scores on physical-fitness tests; he took up skydiving, snorkeling, hiking. If you plan to specialize in a field in which a single mistake can cost you and your comrades their lives, it helps to have high standards. "Ever since I was new to the Army, I made it my personal goal to do as well as I can," he recalled. "I thought of it as kind of a representation of my being, my honor, who I was."
The Army trained him to take apart bombs. He and his team were among the first on the scene of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, combing the ruins for any other devices, and he traveled occasionally to help the Secret Service protect then First Lady Hillary Clinton. He met Leslie in 1994 during a break in her college psychology studies. They started dating, sometimes across continents--he did two tours in Bosnia. During a Stateside break in January 2001, he married Leslie in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. They had three children in four years, and McCaddon, by then an active-duty officer, moved with his family to Vilseck, Germany, where he helped run an Army dental office.
He was still ambitious--two of Leslie's pregnancies had been difficult, so he decided to apply to the military's medical school and specialize in obstetrics. But then, while he was back in Washington for his interview, came a living nightmare: his oldest son, who was 3, was diagnosed with leukemia. Just before entering med school, McCaddon prepared for his son's chemotherapy by shaving his head in solidarity so the little boy wouldn't feel so strange. McCaddon may not have been a warrior, but he was a fighter. "I became known as a hard-charger," he wrote. "I was given difficult tasks, and moved through the ranks quickly." He pushed people who didn't give 100%; he pushed himself.
The Apache Pilot
Ian Morrison was born at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, son of a Marine. An honor student at Thomas McKean High School in Wilmington, Del., he sang in the chorus, ran cross-country and was a co-captain of the swimming team before heading to West Point. He had a wicked sense of humor and a sweet soul; he met Rebecca on a Christian singles website in 2006 and spent three months charming her over the phone. One night he gave her his credit-card information. "Buy me a ticket, because I'm going to come see you," he told her before flying to Houston. "The minute I picked him up," she recalls, "we later said we both knew it was the real deal." He proposed at West Point when she flew in for his graduation.