Indiana town bids farewell to local Fort Hood victim

Posted: 5:16 PM Nov 14, 2009

Hundreds of people, many holding small American flags, lined the main thoroughfare of a northern Indiana city to watch the funeral procession of a hometown soldier killed in the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting rampage.

Reporter: Katie Beasley
Email Address: katie.beasley@wrdw.com

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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, 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 DeCrows 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." He was assigned to the 16th Signal Company, Fort Hood.

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News 12, November 14, 2009

PLYMOUTH, Ind.-- Hundreds of people, many holding small American flags, lined the main thoroughfare of a northern Indiana city to watch the funeral procession of a hometown soldier killed in the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting rampage.

The crowds fell into solemn silence Saturday as police cars, members of the military and Indiana Patriot Guard motorcyclists escorted a white hearse carrying the flag-draped coffin of Army Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow.

DeCrow, whose wife and 13-year-old daughter live in Evans, Ga., near Fort Gordon, was one of 13 soldiers killed Nov. 5 at Fort Hood when a fellow soldier allegedly opened fire at the Army post.

The 32-year-old was to be buried Saturday afternoon with full military honors in Plymouth's New Oakhill Cemetery in the city 25 miles south of South Bend.