Honoring our choices

Today marks one year since my friend and teammate Nate Krissoff died in Iraq. After writing and rewriting drafts of this post several times, I've decided I can not articulate what an inspiring person Nate was. Here's someone who can...

At 61, doctor joins Navy to honor his son

After his eldest child is killed in Iraq, Bill Krissoff decides to enlist. With help from the White House, he joins the medical corps.

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 1, 2007

SAN DIEGO -- When Marines came to his door a year ago to tell him that his eldest son had been killed in Iraq, Bill Krissoff reacted like any father: with confusion, devastation, then numbness.

Nathan Krissoff was so young, a lover of poetry, a champion athlete, a leader whose maturity and selflessness had impressed fellow Marines.

The father in Krissoff found no resolution to his grief. The physician in him did.

At an age when many people think about retirement, Krissoff decided earlier this year that he would enlist as a doctor. He was 60 years old, decades above the military's preferred demographic.