"When we hit the ground in Iraq his first order of business was to make the soldiers' stay more bearable," said Army Spc. Mike Labadie, Tipton 's friend and former driver. "He was very respected and his soldiers were always first and foremost to him." The 32-year-old from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., was killed May 2, 2004, in an explosion in Iraq's Anbar province. Tipton had been standing in an office when shrapnel came through the window and struck him in the head, witnesses told his parents. He was assigned to Fort Riley.
"He was about the best son a mother or father could ask for," said his father, Dwight Tipton . "He was just the perfect son."
Tipton came from a military family - his father and grandfather retired from the Army and a family member has served in every war since the Civil War, Dwight Tipton said.
John Tipton enlisted after high school, served in the Middle East during the Gulf War and was commissioned as an officer in 1995. He wanted to be a general, his father said.
When they learned of their son's death, the parents erected a memorial in their front yard. A large banner on the fence said: "In Memory of our Beloved Son, Brother, Husband and Father, Capt. John E . Tipton , K.I.A. 5-2-04."
He and his wife, Susie, had two children - Austin, 4, and Kaitlyn, 2.
