Ashlee Cote had to readjust her own life on a tragic day in 2009, when her then 20-year-old husband died in a helicopter crash in Iraq.

“The tragedy showed me that I needed to take care of myself … so I could take care of my family,” said Cote, who met her husband – Army Spc. Michael Cote Jr. — while the two were in basic training. They married and had a daughter, Brooke, who was six months old at the time of her father’s death.