I wasn’t at my new assignment more than two weeks before I had to tell someone their son had died.

As I prepared myself, a million thoughts went through my mind: What should I say? What should I do? Am I ready for this? How will the family react to me?

I started to feel overwhelmed. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

I hadn’t had time to read through the Casualty Assistance Calls Officer (CACO) manual. I asked an experienced Marine for insights on what to do. He emphasized that I should only refer to the deceased by their name. It was good advice: they were not inanimate objects, so don’t treat them that way.

In my 24 years in the Marine Corps, casualty notification was the hardest duty. I dreaded knocking on someone’s door. Most people immediately knew why I was there, but they reacted differently every time.

There was the mother who couldn’t even look at me at her son’s funeral. The families I consoled as they collapsed upon hearing the news. There were the plane passengers who stared down while the casket was lowered from the cargo hold and placed in a hearse.

Some Marines have even been assaulted when delivering the tragic news.

During my first casualty notification in 2006, at the 4th Landing Support Battalion in Fort Lewis, Washington, we realized the parents were divorced and another team would be needed for a simultaneous notification. My team would drive to the father’s house, while the other team would head to the mother’s.

What I didn’t know was that the father had remarried. His new wife opened the door, quickly determined why we were there, and briskly walked away, leaving us standing in the doorway. I saw her pick up a phone and start dialing.

I didn’t know what to do: Do I enter the house, or do I just stand there until she comes back? I decided to step inside and walk over.

She handed me the phone and a male voice demanded to know who I was, what I was doing there, and if this was a joke. None of my explanations seemed to matter. He hung up.

I thought about the other team that went to the mom’s address. I could only hope that it was going better than this.

The father soon came home and I told him about his son’s death. There had been an accidental shooting. He stood in stunned disbelief. After a moment, he called his ex-wife to tell her what happened.

As it turned out, she had not been home either. The other team had knocked on the door of an empty house. The in-person notification to the parents didn’t happen as planned. I felt terrible.

Later, the deceased Marines unit in Florida called and berated me for “screwing up.” I was pissed. Next thing I knew, the Casualty Branch in Quantico demanded a report about what happened. These situations were hard enough, and I didn’t need this.

Over the next three years, I conducted five more notifications amid my other duties.

Each was a unique experience. During my second casualty notification, I flew to Canada because the parents were on an Alaskan cruise ship. I met them when the ship docked in British Columbia and told them their son had been killed in Afghanistan.

For another, my team and I were chased out of the house by an enraged father, who threatened us with bodily harm. Although the son had a previously unknown medical condition, the father felt the Marine Corps had somehow killed his son.

The fourth notification was for a reservist on active-duty orders who died in a traffic accident. The fifth was for a Marine who suffered a medical emergency in Hawaii.

My sixth and final notification was for a second Marine killed in Afghanistan. We went to the family’s address and knocked on the door. Through the side panel of frosted glass, I could see someone approaching. A female voice on the verge of crying asked what we wanted.

I explained who we were, and the door opened slowly. She told us that her husband was a retired Marine and that she knew what it meant when two uniformed Marines showed up at your door.

Unfortunately, the father wasn’t home. He was on shift with the Seattle Fire Department. She drove with us to the station. The father happened to be outside and noticed two Marines emerging from a nearby vehicle. The mom exited the back seat and walked towards her husband, crying. The two of them embraced. Nothing needed to be said—a casualty notification took place in the street before I could say a word.

So much depended on us getting it right. The family considered us their only conduit to the Marine Corps, and we needed to live up to that responsibility. There could be serious consequences if we were not honest or made a mistake, not only for us, but for the Marine Corps’ reputation for taking care of their own.

We tried to be sensitive to the grieving family, but by the second day, we had to deal with the numerous administrative tasks tied to a Marine’s death.

The Casualty Guidebook provides step-by-step instructions on the paperwork and benefits that must follow: the death gratuity, final pay, and arrears disbursement; the Survivors Benefit Plan; Servicemembers Group Life Insurance; personal effects inventory. I didn’t like that task. It felt like we were discussing a checklist instead of a person.

We also became the family’s connection to the Veterans Benefits Administration for programs such as bereavement counseling, educational assistance, requesting a headstone, and many long-term entitlements and resources.

But the CACO manual could not truly prepare us for managing a family’s emotions during this process. The care and compassion needed to sit with the family as they broke down and cried while signing their signature countless times is hard to describe. Many couldn’t bear to sign their names—they just wanted their child back.

I still vividly remember each notification, all these years later. Every time I returned home, I felt like I could finally take a breath. My wife would greet me as I stepped inside, physically and emotionally exhausted.

Honestly, casualty notifications were a miserable experience, but vital. Families depended on us during their worst moments. Once assigned a notification, it became my number-one priority. It was too important not to give this duty the attention it needed, along with the highest dignity and respect it deserved.

Caring for the families while demonstrating the highest ideals of the Marine Corps was, while painful, necessary. Being a CACO was not something I aimed for, but something I’m proud of.

This War Horse Reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mollie Turnbull. Kim Vo wrote the headlines.