Biden was already in Washington. It was his sister Val who took the
phone call, her face drained of color when she hung up and told him of
"a slight accident."
Biden thought immediately of his wife, Neilia. "She's dead, isn't she?" the politician asked.As the Bidens were driving home in the family station wagon, their tree
picked out, they were broad sided by a tractor-trailer. Neilia was
killed, along with 13-month-old daughter, Naomi.
MEET JOE BIDEN
Sons Beau and Hunter, toddlers themselves, were critically injured. With
their father's constant care and attention, both recovered.
Now, 36 years later, Beau leaves Oct. 3 with his National Guard unit to
serve in the Iraq war - with his father's 2002 vote for the war, in some
measure, responsible.
Biden opposes the war now. His son, along with the rest of the 261st Signal Brigade, will be gone before Election Day.
His first marriage
Biden married his first wife Aug. 27, 1966, and the pair settled
in Syracuse. Both attended the law school at the university, from which
Biden graduated in 1968.
He comes from an Irish-Catholic family, the son of a Scranton, Pa., car dealer and one of four kids.
The freshly minted lawyer carried those working-class values as the
couple returned to Delaware, where Biden worked as a trial attorney and
public defender.
Their first child, Joseph 3rd, arrived Feb. 3, 1969, and was soon known to all as Beau.
Hunter arrived one year and one day later, followed in November 1971 by
daughter Naomi Christina. The next November saw Biden's election to the
senate, unseating a Republican incumbent.
Life was good for the 29-year-old Biden.
But before he could settle in Washington, tragedy struck in Delaware.
The horrific car crash before Christmas 1972 nearly killed Biden's
entire family.
As the two boys grew up, doting dad Biden became known for taking the
train home nightly from Washington to Delaware.Biden, suddenly a single
parent, devoted himself to the two boys. He took the Senate oath of
office at their hospital bedsides in 1973 - at a time when Barack
Obama was only a few years older than Biden's sons. His dead wife's
father held the Bible he was sworn in on.
Biden eventually found love again, marrying schoolteacher Jill Tracy Jacobs in June 1977.
Daughter Ashley was born four years later.
Life went on, but Biden never forgot. The senator never works on Dec. 18.
Near-death experience
The kids grew up, and the father became a national political figure.
There were two presidential runs, and a regular reelection every six
years.
Biden survived his own near-death experience in 1988, undergoing surgery for a pair of brain aneurysms.
Son Beau, now 39, followed his father into law school, becoming a
federal prosecutor and Delaware's attorney general. Hunter, 38, became a
Washington lobbyist, while 27-year-old Ashley is a social worker.
Beau's 2006 election to statewide office raised speculation in his home
state about the possibility of him succeeding his father in the Senate.
But his four-year term will be interrupted for at least a year. Beau
Biden, a captain in his National Guard unit, ships out to Iraq in six
weeks.
He's unlikely to end up in any gunfights - as a member of the Judge
Advocate General's Corps, he's a military lawyer more likely to offer
friendly legal advice than face enemy fire.
Biden, while worried about his son's upcoming tour of duty, said he was
hopeful it would benefit future generations of American families -
including his own."I tell you what," Biden said during an Iowa stop on his presidential
campaign. "I don't want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in
15 years."
She was.
