Joe was twenty-five years old when his Apache helicopter crashed during a routine training mission in Kuwait ten days after his deployment from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He accomplished much in his brief time on this earth. He graduated in 1997 from Reedley High School in Reedley, California.

He went on to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he graduated in 2001 with degrees in aerospace engineering and military science, and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Aviation Branch.

Joe was a third-generation West Point alumnus following in the footsteps of his paternal grandfather and namesake, Joe Fenton Lusk, a 1946 graduate, and his uncle Patrick Lusk who graduated in 1976.

Proceeds from the CPT Joe F. Lusk II bracelet will be donated to the CPT Joe Lusk II Memorial Foundation.