My son, Adam, the youngest of my four children. The moment I first held him I knew he was very special, his quietness, shiny white hair and happy deep blue eyes. He was a very calm baby, slept through the night right from the start. He was a playful toddler and he loved his big brothers and sister. He always tried to do whatever he saw them doing. He learned at a very young age how to play Army with his brothers in the house or out in the backyard.

When he started school he was a quick study, by first grade he was put in enrichment classes. In third grade he won 1st place in the science fair by inventing a travel toothbrush with toothpaste already in it. He was very creative and an artist, I still have his drawing pad. He made friends very easy all through school and made very good grades in school.

Adam's junior year in high school he was chosen to go to a leadership retreat in York, Nebraska for a couple of weeks. When Adam came back home, York had stolen his heart. Adam's high school was small and he loved it because he knew everyone there. When Adam went to York he found a college very much like his high school, a small school where everyone knew each other and got a long with each other. So when the College recruiter can down to Valdosta Adam's senior year, Adam had him stay with us and that was the end of my idea of Adam going to a college close to home.

All my children are very special to me in their own way, however, Adam was my youngest and the last to leave home so it was very hard to let him go so far from home. But I wanted Adam to be happy wherever he chose to go to college. He was very happy while he attended York College and made many close friends. Going off to college is that first step of our children becoming adults and we as parents have to allow them to find their own way in the world and turn them over to God's total care. This is when we as parents start remembering how special those past years were. As my children were growing up I would keep any little thing they made in order to hang on to those memories. Mt oldest son told me one day if he ever had children he was not going to keep every little thing they made like me. But today, I am so thankful to have all of those memories to touch and hold and let them carry me back to an earlier time in my life, a time when my children were young and safe in my arms. They take me to the sounds of laughter of children playing, and hearing the calls of mom, mom are you there.

Adam was a Christian and he love working for the church and had always planned to be a youth minster after finishing college and his Navy career, however on April 6th, 2007 the Lord came down and called my son home. I was very heart broken, but also a feeling of great pride because of the man my son had become. As for myself, I am very blessed for the Lord allowed me to be Adam's mother for 26 years.

On April 6, 2007 some where in Hawijah, Iraq, as a result of injuries received while a passenger in a government-owned vehicle (HMMVW 1114) that was struck by a 107mm rocket Joseph "Adam" McSween was killed in action while serving with EODMU~11, Detachment~1 of the United States Navy.

Left behind to forever love and miss him is his mother, daughters, brothers, sister and many other family members and friends.

Florence McSween, Mother