News 12, November 7, 2009

EVANS, Ga.---An Evans husband and father has been identified as one of the thirteen killed at Fort Hood on Thursday.

According to representatives from Fort Gordon, Army Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow, from Plymouth, Indiana has been confirmed as one of the victims. DeCrow and his family lived in Evans, Ga. He has a 13-year old daughter.

DeCrow worked a satellite communications operator-maintainer and had been assigned to a Signal unit at Fort Hood since September, Fort Gordon said in a news release Saturday.

He was assigned to Fort Gordon in 2000 for training in satellite technology, according to the release.

His wife Marikay DeCrow told CNN her husband went to Fort Hood to prepare for his deployment to Iraq. He was scheduled to deploy sometime between December and March.

She also said he had just come back from a tour in South Korea.

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 at Fort Gordon, 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 had been married for 14 years and 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."

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, 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.

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."

The shootings happened Thursday on Texas Army base Fort Hood. The alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is in stable condition. He's accused of killed 13 people and injuring another 38. The Army has said Maj. Hasan was set to deploy soon.

Amanda Stinnett is in the Air Force and stationed at Fort Gordon and still can't believe what took place at Fort Hood Thursday or that one of the soldiers family lives in the area, she said.

"It's just a horrible situation all around," she said. "Something nobody would really expect."

Especially since it happened on base a place where Sgt. DeCrow tried to teach other soldiers that it was a safe place to be.

"I just thought it was really tragic that it was somebody on our military forces," Stinnett said.

In this time of sorrow for many across the country and now here in Evans, a Fort Gordon official says everyone is coming together no matter which force they belong to in the military.

"Of course every service has their rivalry, but we're all very close when it comes down to it, especially when something like this happens," Stinnett said. "Everybody feels their loss, everybody in the military all over the U.S."