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As with most other nights when her husband flew Marine CH-53E Super Stallions, Kelli Campbell-Goodnow expected him to come home around 2 a.m., and crawl into bed. It was Jan. 14, 2016, and Maj. Shawn Campbell was scheduled to pilot one of two of the big cargo helicopters on a routine training mission off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii.
“That's when everything changed,” Campbell-Goodnow said.
But Campbell had not arrived when Kelli's phone rang at about 4 a.m. It was her father calling from Kansas, where it was already 8 a.m., and he was watching TV.
“It was on the news,” Campbell-Goodnow said. Reports weren't naming a squadron or details, just that two CH-53 helicopters had collided in Hawaii and a search was underway.
“But they knew there was only one squadron of 53s out there,” she said. “They knew that we probably were going to know whoever it was. And so my dad called to make sure Shawn was home.
“He was not, and I knew in that instant.”
Kelli and Shawn had four kids, the oldest 11, the youngest just 2. Their happy plans to raise them together in retirement, just a few years away, were gone. Survival filled the gap.
As a mom of four, she had to prioritize her…
