Son's letter before he died helps dad cope

ST. ANNE, Ill. -- It is a letter no parent should ever receive.

"Well if you are reading this, then things didn't go well for me over in Iraq," begins a letter from Marine Capt. Ryan Beaupre to his parents, written 10 days before he was killed when the helicopter he was helping to pilot crashed in Kuwait on March 21 of last year.

"Realize that I died doing something that I truly love, and for a purpose greater than myself," he wrote.

Mark Beaupre knows there are no words to adequately explain his pain. But his son found the words to help him cope with it.

"Just the knowledge that he was doing what he wanted," Beaupre said. "He told us that, of course, but just having it post-mortem like that. I've let his friends read it and they've felt better about losing him."

It's only now that he understands what happened after the death of a friend who was killed in Vietnam when he stepped on a land mine.

"His mom died two years after that and his dad a year after," Beaupre said. "I can see why."