Matt served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an Army Ranger within the 2nd Battalion. He remained devoted to his mission and his brothers for his entire life, dropping anything and everything to help someone in need, even when he was struggling hard himself. He excelled at sneaky little acts of kindness, and his face always broke into a giant smirk when he was found out.

It’s completely impossible to capture his big heart and boundless spirit in a biography, but if you’ve ever heard him laugh you’ll get an idea of his vivacity. Nobody could tell a story like Matt, and he was fearless in accumulating experiences. He loved his mother and sister fiercely, was a loyal, hard-headed friend, and always had his giant dog-shadow Biggs at his side. A man of many talents, Matt avidly practiced wrestling and jiu-Jitsu. He could fill up a ruck with everything and anything you could possibly need or want and carry it up and down mountains. Fix (and run-down) cars. Carpentry and woodwork. And, although he did this more quietly on his own, he was amazing at gardening and nurturing plants. Drawing too. Not to mention he could grill some mean ribs (he even had a cookbook in the works).