When he looks at her, he sees what could have been. Every time he glances her way, he thinks about what he has missed. Since the day his life changed forever, he has had a hole inside him, a hole that cannot be repaired. But, just for a moment, when he looks at her, he gets a feeling of what life might have been like if he iad seen his daughter grow. She would have been different, that's for sure. The daughter of a marine would have looked different, but the fire would have been the same. The glow, the buzz, the excitement. He knows what others people think, they think he is over protective, they think he guards her too much. But the truth is, he is trying to have, if only for a moment, the feeling of being a father again. The feeling of having someone look up to him, to love him, to need him.
Yes, that's how it could have been.