jaypeemiller

RIP SSG Justin Decrow

Little did I know when the tradgedy at Fort Hood happened but one of the victims was a leader who was one of my instructors through training. I hope that you have found your peace and I will pray for your family Justin.


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, Marikay DeCrow, said in a telephone interview from the couple's home in Evans, Ga. "They should be safe there. They should be safe."

In a statement Saturday, she said her husband's "infectious charm and wit always put others at ease."

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."

The couple were high school sweethearts who married in 1996. Marikay DeCrow said her husband was first stationed at Fort Gordon in 2000, and she had hoped they would reunite at their home in nearby Evans when another post there opened up.

DeCrow was stationed in Korea from September 2008 to August. He left in September to go to Fort Hood.

His father, Daniel DeCrow, of Fulton, Ind., 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."