His wife died on deployment

I was on a deployment with a guy I knew for many years previously. Past units. I "fast tracked" and he kind of just stayed stagnant throughout the years. On this deployment, he fell under my responsibility. I was his 1SG. Months into a reallllly rough deployment, I get the red cross. His wife OD'd back home. They had a total of 9 kids among them. I honestly don't remember how many (each) were brought into their marriage...but they were together for years raising these kids. I (and my CDR) had to wake him up and walk him somewhere away from the tents. I had tell this man all of this because I was not going to let some dickfk 26 yr old tell him. I remember him just looking at me...and his eyes slowing filling up. I couldn't cry myself though. I had to make sure that he knew, that I was going to get him home and make sure we did everything we could to find out where his kids were, so he could focus on packout and flying. 24 hours on a fly out is a long time to sit in silence. Damn that was hard to think about the days that followed.