[1] McCaw served in the United States Navy in the late 1910s before attending college; at Indiana, he was a cadet in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps.
[2] In 1933, after working at Wisconsin Power and Light Company, McCaw returned to the Army as a first lieutenant.
In addition to serving on active duty, he was a company commander and area inspector for the Civilian Conservation Corps.
McCaw came back to Indiana as a captain for the United States Army Reserve, where he worked in the Department of Military Science and Tactics.
[2] On April 19, 1942, while doing a round table discussion for the WIRE radio station with Major Fenwick T. Reed and Lieutenant Bernard O'Neal, McCaw suffered a fatal heart attack.