Military family’s 1st Memorial Day in the Lowcountry comes with bittersweet blessing

When high school sweethearts Capt. Mitchell and Katie Morton dreamed of a place to call home, they always came back to the Lowcountry.

The Greenville natives weren’t strangers to packing up and moving.

Since Mitchell enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 2015, after graduating from Clemson University, the military took them all over the country. Mitchell went to officer candidates school in Quantico, Virginia. They journeyed over 2,000 miles from their childhood homes to Twentynine Palms, California. Mitchell had a six-month deployment overseas in 2017. And then they lived on Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

It was time to settle down, the couple decided. The Lowcountry, with its sprawling sandy beaches and signature Southern hospitality, was where they’d raise their three children. In 2020, Katie’s parents relocated to Beaufort County and each time the Mortons visited, they fell even more in love with the Lowcountry.

Their dream was a plan in motion until their world was upended by a devastating diagnosis.

Eight-month fight

In April 2022, Mitchell, a logistics officer in the Marine Corps, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer.

Doctors linked the testicular choriocarcinoma to toxic chemical exposure during his deployment. The exposure typically comes from burn pits used on U.S. military bases in the Middle East. Tons of waste — human and medical, solvents, plastics, metals and wood — are burned in the pits, usually with JP-8 jet fuel as an accelerant, according to the American Cancer Society. The burn pits send out large volumes of toxic smoke, affecting the people assigned to tend to them and exposing others as wind picks up the emissions.

As strong as Mitchell fought during five rounds of chemotherapy, Katie advocated for her husband with the same fervor. He was in and out of the hospital and by September, the cancer had metastasized from Mitchell’s liver, lungs and abdomen up to his brain. He underwent brain surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, but by the end of October, he was placed on a ventilator. The machine breathed for him for 17 days.

Capt. Mitchell Morton died on Nov. 4, 2022. He was 31.

Heart-wrenching grief tore through the family and, as it did, the reality of losing Mitchell began to unfold. They’d lost a father, a husband and a best friend. As a doting stay-at-home mom, her youngest only 14 months at the time, financial responsibility shifted and fell solely on Katie.

“I just remember thinking, ‘What am I going to do?’” Katie said. “It just broke my heart thinking that I would have to potentially work a 9-to-5 job and not be with them.”

Would she be able to pick up her kids from school? Could she go to their activities? What about her and Mitchell’s dream to move their family to the Lowcountry?

Now, 18 months since Mitchell passed, Katie could’ve never foreseen having all those answers.

A life-changing call

Before telling Katie, her best friend from Greenville submitted an application that set straight the trajectory of the Mortons’ lives.

She’d written to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. The national nonprofit pays the mortgage on or builds mortgage-free, specially-adapted smart homes for Gold Star and fallen first-responder families with young children. Its programs have committed over $500 million to families since the nonprofit was established following 9/11.

Two months after Mitchell’s death, when Katie was grappling with whether she’d sell their Jacksonville home and move farther south, the foundation called. After a series of interviews, she was in. Tunnel to Towers would relieve her of one of her largest financial burdens.

“We cannot give Katie back Capt. Morton,” said John Huvane, the foundation’s vice president. “What we can do for these three children is ensure that they do not have to move. They don’t have to leave their friends or their schools. Katie gets the support of her neighbors and the community.”

From there, Katie and her three children took a leap of faith. They headed to the Lowcountry.

The four officially moved in July 2023, temporarily living with Katie’s parents in their Beaufort County house. Six months later and 10 minutes down the road, the family celebrated the new year in their own place in Okatie. This Memorial Day weekend, the home mortgage will be entirely paid.

“It’s life changing for me,” Katie said. “To become part of this mortgage-pay-off program, it’s allowed me to continue those dreams of being home with my kids.”

She can pick up her kids from school. Take her daughter to ballet. Watch their tennis practice. It’s helped Katie do what’s most important to her: pouring love and time into her children as they all work through the grieving process.

Tunnel to Towers truly does what it says, Katie said, adding that she was “blown away” by the foundation.

“They really mean that we are family now,” she said. “They want to take you in. They care about my kids. They care about me.”

Home in the Lowcountry

Sitting alone on her screened-in porch, with her children resting inside on a Friday afternoon, Katie looked out at her neighborhood.

It’s a place she and her children feel safe and cared for by the community.

For Memorial Day, a federal holiday that honors and mourns U.S. military personnel who died fighting for their country, she and the kids lined the driveway with mini American flags and hung their standard-sized version on the outside of the house.

Taking in a moment by herself, she reflected on the overwhelming days leading up to the holiday. She went to her kids’ preschool and kindergarten graduations. On Thursday, Katie and Mitchell would’ve celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary. She wanted Memorial Day to be low key.

Just her and the kids honoring Mitchell in the Lowcountry home he and Katie had always imagined.

To participate in the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s numerous events or give a donation, visit t2t.org.