Somewhere in the Crawford household, two picture frames tell a story of like father, like son.
In one frame, the elder Bill as a cadet at West Point (Class of 1980); in the other, dated about three decades later, his son Barret, a cadet at the Academy himself (Class of 2015).
“It makes a father very proud to see two things -– one to see your son going down your path, and two to know that that path ends up in service to the country,” Bill said.
For as long as the younger Crawford can remember, the Army has been a recurring theme in his relationship with his father, whether it be the mantra, “Go Army, Beat Navy,” the West Point events he attended as a child, or the trip he took to Fort Rucker when he was 10 where he got to fly a Black Hawk simulator. When it came time to choose a direction in life, Barret discovered the path had already been forged for him by his father.