Earlier this month Lance Corporal Ryan McCaughn was killed in Iraq.
To understand how McCaughn found his way to the Marines it's important to know about his relationship with his father.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein reports.
DG: Ryan's mom Nicole Cote never saw her son as military material.
Nicole Cote (NC): 5:47...He wanted to be Jim Carrey Jr. and he was that funny. He would get up on the stage, and he did his performance, and there were hundreds and hundreds of people and it didn't faze him. He was at home...and that is what I truly thought he was going to do.
DG: English teacher Amy Pennington remembers the kid who liked to make people laugh.
Her take on his shtick was that he liked the attention that came with being a kind of clown.
He seemed to be looking for something he wasn't getting.
Ryan confirmed her suspicion when she started reading his stories and poems.
Amy Pennington (AP):14:10 when I would say what are you writing about here, it says something about your dad....and his eyes would just get really dark, and he would say something glib and pass it off. And say, well my dad wasn't really around much.
DG: When he was around one Ryan's parents split up.
By the time Ryan had entered high school, he had met his father a few times.
First as a 2 year old....when Tom McCaughn put together a big wheel for his son's birthday....And again at 10 for a week in Wisconsin, where Ryan met his father's new wife and his half-siblings.
Apart from those memories, some photos and the occasional phone call there was little else to the relationship.
But Ryan was always curious about Tom.
Nicole says the older he got, the more intense his desire became to know his father.
Nicole Cote (NC): 7:02 he was 14...we got him a computer. So now he's like, 'I am so excited, maybe I can get dad's email.' And he would call him and leave messages, please send me your email. And it just went on for months. No response. And I just saw the kid crumble.
DG: Tom says he was reluctant to call Ryan at Nicole's house.
He says bitter feelings between him and his ex-wife made phone calls difficult.
Tom McCaughn (TM)10:26 probably in retrospect I am sure I should have tried to communicate with him on email and maybe that would have helped some, but I always had that fear b/c of the contentious nature of all the telephone conversations, I would never get the opportunity to really speak with him.
DG: His junior year Ryan began talking about joining the Marines.
Nicole suspects his decision had something to do with Ryan following his father's footsteps into the Corps.
NC: 6:24 ...He wanted his father so bad. Something he wanted to be acknowledged by him. A pat on the back. 'Son, I am proud of you.' Something. And I think that he thought maybe if he joined the Marine Corp he would get that pat on the back.
DG: Tom estimates he and Ryan spoke 8 or 9 times when Ryan was deciding whether to join the military.
But he says their chats drifted away from talk of war in Iraq.
TM: 55:33....a time where you just sit down and talk. You don't have to talk about anything important. You talk about just b/c you are happy to be with them.... it was obvious that we had a lot of catching up to do.
DG: That never happened.
Less than two months into Ryan's deployment, a roadside bomb killed him instantly.
TM: I can't tell you how hurt I am that I am not going to have an opportunity to have that man-to-man father-son relationship. I do believe in Heaven Ryan knew, knows the pureness of the love I have for him in my heart.
DG: Since her son's death Nicole has spent a lot of time at her dining room table, smoking cigarettes wondering....what if somehow life had worked out just a little differently....the question makes her sick.
NC: 13:05 I am devastated, I feel I have been cheated. It's not my doing. I feel I did everything I could. It just wasn't enough. B/c I couldn't fill his void, as much as I tried, I couldn't. I was his mom. I was his best friend...just not fair.
DG: Whenever people would ask, 'why Ryan? Why are you going?' he would say the same thing.
If he could keep one dad from going to Iraq by taking his place, than he would have accomplished something.
For NPR News, I'm DG in Concord, NH.
