thedrifter
06-20-06, 01:33 PM
June 26, 2006
A Marine to the max
But Maj. Michael Stover’s personal problems proved too great
By Carl Hunnell
Special to the Times
MANSFIELD, Ohio — Michael Stover didn’t cry.
As a child, he lost a tear duct when a friend whacked him in the head with a snow shovel. He told his older brother and sister that’s why he didn’t shed tears, even when he did crazy childhood things like fall from trees.
As an adult, Stover was a Marine Corps officer, and Marines don’t cry, no matter how much things hurt. They don’t reach out in times of personal need. Marines never retreat.
But faced with personal problems no one could see, problems he couldn’t overcome, Stover found his own solution.
On June 3, Stover, 43, took his own life, midway through his second deployment deep inside Iraq. It ended his own pain, but left behind heartache for family and friends. They buried him in a national cemetery with a final salute, but still without answers about the Marine and the man they loved.
They cried for the warrior who could never cry for himself.
No one could ever say Michael Stover shirked his duty, lacked courage or failed in his commitments — the Corps’ core values. He enlisted right after high school, to the chagrin of his parents, LaVern “Smokey” Stover, a veteran FBI agent, and Doris Stover. They thought college was his best option. They saw his love of literature and knew he would be an outstanding collegian. But the fact that Stover joined the Corps didn’t surprise his older brother and sister, who had watched him grow up craving adventure as much as he did book knowledge.
“His nickname was Monkey as a kid because he was always falling out of trees, breaking his arm, riding bicycles and flying over the handlebars and ending up in hospitals,” said Cheryl Stover Meister, 49. “Anything that was exciting or extreme, Michael had to be involved in.”
“He lifted [weights] a lot. He rode his bicycle long distances. He was into a lot of physical activities that challenged him as an individual,” said his brother, Edward “Al” Stover, 45.
A challenge beckoned
Michael Stover, a 5-foot-9, 185-pound rock of a man, was an excellent student and could have earned academic scholarships to college. But the Corps offered the kind of test that seemed a natural next step for a young man eager to push his own limits.
Stover’s childhood eye injury prevented him from pursuing his dream job in Marine aviation. He instead used his love of reading and writing by accepting a job in public affairs. He did a tour with the Fleet Hometown News Center in Norfolk, Va.
He worked with a Marine aircraft unit operating out of Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. He worked in the Marine Corps Recruiting Station in St. Louis. Along the way, Stover fell in love for the first time — with the Corps.
“I think he intended to get out after his first enlistment,” Edward Stover said. “But he grew to love it so much he decided that if he was going to stay in, he should become an officer and a leader.”
Stover accepted a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps Marine Option scholarship.
He was released from active duty to attend Ohio State University in 1986. Later than his parents intended, he was finally a college student.
Commissioned in 1990 as a Marine second lieutenant at age 28, Stover set off to conquer the world and serve his country. He worked at Camp Lejuene, N.C., as a logistics officer in an engineer support battalion, serving as a platoon and later company commander.
The Corps satisfied Stover’s desire for adventure by sending him in pursuit of it. Time off was a luxury he could not afford, or seek.
In the mid-1990s, now-Capt. Stover served as logistics officer for the 8th Marines and a Marine landing team, attending the Amphibious Warfare School along the way. In 1998, he reported to the Marine Corps Reserve Center in Concord, Calif., where he served as an inspector-instructor for a Landing Support Battalion. He was promoted to major in 2000.
But he was learning there was a price to pay for his devotion to duty. His first marriage in 1990 ended in failure less than 10 years later. He wasn’t there when his mother died in 1999. He wasn’t at home when his father died in 2003.
“The night before his plane left [after visiting his dad in 2003], it had to be one of the hardest things he did in his life … knowing when he said goodbye it would be the last time he would ever see his father,” Meister said, her voice breaking. “We got Mike on the phone with us in the room the night Dad died. ... He was there with us, even if it had to be over a telephone.”
Work consumed him
In 2004, Stover reported to Marine Wing Support Squadron 371 in Yuma, Ariz., where he served first as operations officer and then as executive officer. Married a second time with a young stepson at home, Stover’s devotion to the Corps, his first love, still consumed him.
“Work was his life,” said Lt. Chris Kaprielian, who served under Stover in the operations office in Yuma. “We all worked really long hours, but he was there before anyone else and stayed even later. I never knew anyone who worked as hard as he did.”
The squadron was deployed to Iraq in February 2005 for a seven-month tour. But as Stover cared for and led his 400-plus Marines in a war zone, his personal life continued to unravel.
His second wife of about one year told him she was leaving him, going back to college in Colorado and sending her young child to live with her parents in Japan. It was a terrible blow to a man whose entire life was loyalty, honor, duty, courage and commitment.
His brother, a retired major in the Ohio Air National Guard whose own wife had left him while he served in Germany during Operation Desert Storm, understood it too well.
“I think unfortunately today a lot of the values he had, the integrity, the devotion to his job, it’s hard to find somebody who understands that,” Edward Stover said.
“I don’t think people back home understand ... everyone talks about the ultimate sacrifices, but they don’t understand the little sacrifices,” Michael Stover’s brother said. “They don’t understand what it’s like for a soldier to not be there for a child’s birthday, for the holidays, for their parents’ illnesses, as well as their deaths.”
Stover finished his tour with the 371 and returned to Yuma in September. But it was a bitter homecoming. The wife and the stepson he loved as his own were gone. But even as he tried to come to grips with his personal problems and losses, the Corps summoned him again.
A similar Marine Wing Support Squadron, the 374th in Twentynine Palms, Calif., needed an executive officer. The unit was set to deploy to Iraq in February 2006, and it desperately needed a solid second-in-command to prepare the Marines for war.
The man it needed was Stover.
At first, he believed it would be a temporary assignment until a new permanent executive officer was located. But it soon became clear these Marines would need him in Iraq. Home for just a few months, he was being sent back to war, this time with young men and women he barely knew.
Had Stover told his superiors of his personal issues, perhaps they would have allowed him to withdraw from this second deployment in less than a year.
But Stover didn’t cry, he didn’t complain and he didn’t seek help. A Marine, he did his duty.
Stationed in Anbar
Stover and his new unit arrived in Iraq in February, stationed at an air base in Anbar province.
In April, his personal life intruded again. The completed divorce papers arrived, making official a broken partnership he had hoped could be saved.
At 43, the Marine who had spent his life in search of adventure and service to his country found himself horribly alone.
Even surrounded by Marines, Stover must have felt a loneliness few can imagine. Even frequent e-mails to and from his brother and sister back in Mansfield couldn’t ease the pain.
“I personally think there was a tug of war between the Marine Corps, which he grew to love, and the responsibilities of duty, honor and country that he couldn’t give up, and the want for a family and the loss of a family that he wanted so deeply,” Edward Stover said.
In early May, Stover informed his commanding officer, Lt. Col. Phillip Woody, that he would decline a promotion to lieutenant colonel.
Instead, Stover decided, it was time to retire at the end of 2006, after completing his mission with 374.
In an e-mail to his CO with the 371, less than a month before his suicide, Stover wrote, “It’s been a tough decision, and is not a knee-jerk decision, something I’ve been debating with myself for almost the last year. ... I know in my heart that it is the right decision. ... I want to stick this deployment out. I couldn’t ask for a better twilight than to go out at the squadron level with 371 and 374.”
Stover’s decision to retire, rather than easing his mind, created a deep sense of guilt. He felt he was turning his back on his military family, although he had no civilian family to call his own.
Stover, a frequent e-mailer to family and friends, stopped communicating with his brother and sister in late May.
He wrote one last letter, asking his brother to care for his dog and telling his family where his assets and lockers were.
He had decided.
Stover had found a way out of his pain.
On June 3, inside Iraq, Maj. Michael D. Stover killed himself.
Ed Stover and Meister hope that, by talking openly about their brother’s death, they can help others learn from it.
“Two things I would tell [military family members] ... to tell their family members ... thank them for all the little sacrifices they do daily,” Ed Stover said.
“Because I don’t think anybody ever tells them that. And I think in some way they wish someone would acknowledge those. And to stay in touch as often and frequently as they can, either by e-mail, mail or phone if possible.
“If something were to happen where that communication would stop, to try to get around that individual and find out why.”
Carl Hunnell writes for the Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal.
Ellie
A Marine to the max
But Maj. Michael Stover’s personal problems proved too great
By Carl Hunnell
Special to the Times
MANSFIELD, Ohio — Michael Stover didn’t cry.
As a child, he lost a tear duct when a friend whacked him in the head with a snow shovel. He told his older brother and sister that’s why he didn’t shed tears, even when he did crazy childhood things like fall from trees.
As an adult, Stover was a Marine Corps officer, and Marines don’t cry, no matter how much things hurt. They don’t reach out in times of personal need. Marines never retreat.
But faced with personal problems no one could see, problems he couldn’t overcome, Stover found his own solution.
On June 3, Stover, 43, took his own life, midway through his second deployment deep inside Iraq. It ended his own pain, but left behind heartache for family and friends. They buried him in a national cemetery with a final salute, but still without answers about the Marine and the man they loved.
They cried for the warrior who could never cry for himself.
No one could ever say Michael Stover shirked his duty, lacked courage or failed in his commitments — the Corps’ core values. He enlisted right after high school, to the chagrin of his parents, LaVern “Smokey” Stover, a veteran FBI agent, and Doris Stover. They thought college was his best option. They saw his love of literature and knew he would be an outstanding collegian. But the fact that Stover joined the Corps didn’t surprise his older brother and sister, who had watched him grow up craving adventure as much as he did book knowledge.
“His nickname was Monkey as a kid because he was always falling out of trees, breaking his arm, riding bicycles and flying over the handlebars and ending up in hospitals,” said Cheryl Stover Meister, 49. “Anything that was exciting or extreme, Michael had to be involved in.”
“He lifted [weights] a lot. He rode his bicycle long distances. He was into a lot of physical activities that challenged him as an individual,” said his brother, Edward “Al” Stover, 45.
A challenge beckoned
Michael Stover, a 5-foot-9, 185-pound rock of a man, was an excellent student and could have earned academic scholarships to college. But the Corps offered the kind of test that seemed a natural next step for a young man eager to push his own limits.
Stover’s childhood eye injury prevented him from pursuing his dream job in Marine aviation. He instead used his love of reading and writing by accepting a job in public affairs. He did a tour with the Fleet Hometown News Center in Norfolk, Va.
He worked with a Marine aircraft unit operating out of Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. He worked in the Marine Corps Recruiting Station in St. Louis. Along the way, Stover fell in love for the first time — with the Corps.
“I think he intended to get out after his first enlistment,” Edward Stover said. “But he grew to love it so much he decided that if he was going to stay in, he should become an officer and a leader.”
Stover accepted a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps Marine Option scholarship.
He was released from active duty to attend Ohio State University in 1986. Later than his parents intended, he was finally a college student.
Commissioned in 1990 as a Marine second lieutenant at age 28, Stover set off to conquer the world and serve his country. He worked at Camp Lejuene, N.C., as a logistics officer in an engineer support battalion, serving as a platoon and later company commander.
The Corps satisfied Stover’s desire for adventure by sending him in pursuit of it. Time off was a luxury he could not afford, or seek.
In the mid-1990s, now-Capt. Stover served as logistics officer for the 8th Marines and a Marine landing team, attending the Amphibious Warfare School along the way. In 1998, he reported to the Marine Corps Reserve Center in Concord, Calif., where he served as an inspector-instructor for a Landing Support Battalion. He was promoted to major in 2000.
But he was learning there was a price to pay for his devotion to duty. His first marriage in 1990 ended in failure less than 10 years later. He wasn’t there when his mother died in 1999. He wasn’t at home when his father died in 2003.
“The night before his plane left [after visiting his dad in 2003], it had to be one of the hardest things he did in his life … knowing when he said goodbye it would be the last time he would ever see his father,” Meister said, her voice breaking. “We got Mike on the phone with us in the room the night Dad died. ... He was there with us, even if it had to be over a telephone.”
Work consumed him
In 2004, Stover reported to Marine Wing Support Squadron 371 in Yuma, Ariz., where he served first as operations officer and then as executive officer. Married a second time with a young stepson at home, Stover’s devotion to the Corps, his first love, still consumed him.
“Work was his life,” said Lt. Chris Kaprielian, who served under Stover in the operations office in Yuma. “We all worked really long hours, but he was there before anyone else and stayed even later. I never knew anyone who worked as hard as he did.”
The squadron was deployed to Iraq in February 2005 for a seven-month tour. But as Stover cared for and led his 400-plus Marines in a war zone, his personal life continued to unravel.
His second wife of about one year told him she was leaving him, going back to college in Colorado and sending her young child to live with her parents in Japan. It was a terrible blow to a man whose entire life was loyalty, honor, duty, courage and commitment.
His brother, a retired major in the Ohio Air National Guard whose own wife had left him while he served in Germany during Operation Desert Storm, understood it too well.
“I think unfortunately today a lot of the values he had, the integrity, the devotion to his job, it’s hard to find somebody who understands that,” Edward Stover said.
“I don’t think people back home understand ... everyone talks about the ultimate sacrifices, but they don’t understand the little sacrifices,” Michael Stover’s brother said. “They don’t understand what it’s like for a soldier to not be there for a child’s birthday, for the holidays, for their parents’ illnesses, as well as their deaths.”
Stover finished his tour with the 371 and returned to Yuma in September. But it was a bitter homecoming. The wife and the stepson he loved as his own were gone. But even as he tried to come to grips with his personal problems and losses, the Corps summoned him again.
A similar Marine Wing Support Squadron, the 374th in Twentynine Palms, Calif., needed an executive officer. The unit was set to deploy to Iraq in February 2006, and it desperately needed a solid second-in-command to prepare the Marines for war.
The man it needed was Stover.
At first, he believed it would be a temporary assignment until a new permanent executive officer was located. But it soon became clear these Marines would need him in Iraq. Home for just a few months, he was being sent back to war, this time with young men and women he barely knew.
Had Stover told his superiors of his personal issues, perhaps they would have allowed him to withdraw from this second deployment in less than a year.
But Stover didn’t cry, he didn’t complain and he didn’t seek help. A Marine, he did his duty.
Stationed in Anbar
Stover and his new unit arrived in Iraq in February, stationed at an air base in Anbar province.
In April, his personal life intruded again. The completed divorce papers arrived, making official a broken partnership he had hoped could be saved.
At 43, the Marine who had spent his life in search of adventure and service to his country found himself horribly alone.
Even surrounded by Marines, Stover must have felt a loneliness few can imagine. Even frequent e-mails to and from his brother and sister back in Mansfield couldn’t ease the pain.
“I personally think there was a tug of war between the Marine Corps, which he grew to love, and the responsibilities of duty, honor and country that he couldn’t give up, and the want for a family and the loss of a family that he wanted so deeply,” Edward Stover said.
In early May, Stover informed his commanding officer, Lt. Col. Phillip Woody, that he would decline a promotion to lieutenant colonel.
Instead, Stover decided, it was time to retire at the end of 2006, after completing his mission with 374.
In an e-mail to his CO with the 371, less than a month before his suicide, Stover wrote, “It’s been a tough decision, and is not a knee-jerk decision, something I’ve been debating with myself for almost the last year. ... I know in my heart that it is the right decision. ... I want to stick this deployment out. I couldn’t ask for a better twilight than to go out at the squadron level with 371 and 374.”
Stover’s decision to retire, rather than easing his mind, created a deep sense of guilt. He felt he was turning his back on his military family, although he had no civilian family to call his own.
Stover, a frequent e-mailer to family and friends, stopped communicating with his brother and sister in late May.
He wrote one last letter, asking his brother to care for his dog and telling his family where his assets and lockers were.
He had decided.
Stover had found a way out of his pain.
On June 3, inside Iraq, Maj. Michael D. Stover killed himself.
Ed Stover and Meister hope that, by talking openly about their brother’s death, they can help others learn from it.
“Two things I would tell [military family members] ... to tell their family members ... thank them for all the little sacrifices they do daily,” Ed Stover said.
“Because I don’t think anybody ever tells them that. And I think in some way they wish someone would acknowledge those. And to stay in touch as often and frequently as they can, either by e-mail, mail or phone if possible.
“If something were to happen where that communication would stop, to try to get around that individual and find out why.”
Carl Hunnell writes for the Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal.
Ellie