"Mike"
Mike knew how to solve my problem. "Here, Stevey; wipe your nose with this!" he encouraged me as I cried and cried, first out of fear of the huge, boisterous horses moving all around me, and then because my nose was leaking so badly . . . making things even worse.
"Noooo . . . I n-n-need something c-c-cleeeean . . . like a hankuchif or a
tishew . . . " I whimpered . . . which I guess shouldn't have been entirely
unexpected for such a little boy who had been on this big planet for
only about four or five years.
"It IS clean," Mike assured me with the authority, confidence and
wisdom of one who was all of nine years old, and with that
trademark, typical big grin adorning his face.
"But it's ROUGH," I responded through my tears and dripping nose.
"Sure it's rough; it's supposed to be - it's burlap, but it's clean," Mike
continued to assure and console me as he leaned over and helped me wipe my face and eyes and blow my nose on the old feed sack. "See?!" he said enthusiastically as he guided me through my latest crisis. "The horses won't bother you; they're nice," Mike explained as he led me over to the nearest beast, boosted me up and let me run my hand down the horse's mane. "See - there's no reason to cry."
He was right, of course, and I stopped crying, but I never forgot how
gentle and kind he was that day. It is one of my earliest memories of my
first cousin Mike from so many years ago when I was such a small,
frightened "city kid" who had just been introduced to the "country" in a
big, scary way.
************************************************************************
On a recent unseasonably warm and dry weekend winter day, I went on one of my occasional motorcycle/nostalgia rides and ended up at Sherwood Memorial Park. There I visited Mike's grave amongst the rest of them, situated on a windy hilltop in Salem, Virginia with a commanding view of much of the beautiful surrounding Roanoke Valley. My cousin Mike's remains are buried there in the same part of the cemetery where my parents and maternal grandparents and other family members are located.
The grave markers never tell enough of the story. They can't. On a
1' X 2' concrete, brass and marble monument there's not enough room
to explain the lives of the deceased; their special personalities, their
ongoing contributions to our lives, their importance to those of us
who can still remember them so vividly. Mike's marker reads:
MICHAEL L STIGLICH
VIRGINIA
SSGT US AIR FORCE
VIETNAM
MARCH 5 1946 OCT 8 1969
On this visit I was again surprised at Mike's age when he died - only 23,
many years younger than our two sons are today.
As well it should be, this cemetery is a peaceful, quiet, solemn place, and
I sometimes journey there when I need to slow down the world around
me and spend some uninterrupted time thinking, and remembering...
*********************************************************************
"You guys want to walk up Tinker Mountain?" Mike asked my brother Tony and me and several of our cousins.
"Sure!" I said. "Where is it, and what does it look like?"
"It's right over there," Mike laughed, pointing off in the distance toward the
rugged old mountain, several miles away.
"Oh, that's 'Dead Man's Mountain'," I corrected him. "Mom told us all about it! It looks like a dead man lying under a sheet; this end's the head and that end's the feet - see?!"
Mike laughed again and nodded his head, "Yeah, a lot of people call it that, too. Y'all want to take a hike up to the top of it?"
"Yeah, let's go!" said a chorus of younger male and female voices, a
cohesive, fun-loving group of first cousins and others who were always
willing to go along with Mike's ideas and plans for us.
Of all the grandchildren of Hazel and Byron Poff, Mike was the oldest and the
biggest and, along with his sister, Linda and his brother, Jimmy, he
enjoyed taking us on adventures and doing things with us, and we
were always happy to be included.
After getting permission from the various powers-that-be and making promises to return by a certain time long before dark, we followed Mike over hill and dell, across creeks and gullies, through meadows and pastures and forests and finally up the side of Tinker Mountain to its craggy cliffs and rough rock faces.
What a view! We could see all the way back to where we had started and
everything else for miles and miles around. In the late fifty's there was
no Interstate 81, no huge housing developments, no fast food restaurants, very few hotels and almost no pollution. It was a clear autumn day and most of the trees had lost their leaves, so our view was virtually unobstructed. Mike seemed to know where everything was and he took his time to point out all the sights to be seen from such a splendid vantage point. Finally, it was time to head back.
The return trip was even more fun than the one up the mountain since we
followed Mike's example and used gravity and nature to our best possible advantage. The dry, fallen leaves had choked the draws and gullies and valleys with their crinkly carcasses, and we could sit and slide on piles of them down the sides of the mountain and its foothills for long distances before having to jump up and run to the next available natural sliding board.
Before long we were back at the Stiglich's home - sweaty, out of breath and with bits of leaves and dirt and pine needles stuck in our hair and ears and eyes and noses and shirts and pants and socks and shoes - but back on time, and safe once again.
**********************************************************************
In 1964 Mike graduated with honors from high school, turned down an appointment to the Air Force Academy, and then went on to study at the University of Virginia but, after a couple of years, he decided that college wasn't for him. So, following in the footsteps of his parents, Myra and Leon - both of whom had served in the military during World War II - Mike and his sister Linda made the local news by joining the Air Force together in September, 1966.
Mike trained in Texas, soon earned the rank of staff sergeant and was then stationed in the Philippines. He became a cryptologist (code breaker, receiver and transmitter of encrypted messages) with the National Security Agency and volunteered for service in Vietnam.
In October, 1969 his reconnaissance plane caught on fire and crashed in the jungle, killing all six crew members and bringing to an abrupt end their promising young lives.
I'll never forget the awful emptiness that I felt when I learned of Mike's
death. He had always been bigger than life to me, and now his life was
suddenly over. By then I was nineteen years old and attending the local
community college while working a part-time job for the newspaper. As
difficult as it was for me to deal with Mike's death, I could not imagine
the pain and sense of loss which was being experienced by his parents
and siblings. The world was never the same again for any of us.
Within a month after Mike's funeral, my father committed suicide and - in addition to all of Dad's other problems and troubles - I often wondered if Mike's death may have added to his depression enough to result in such a sad, dramatic end.
*************** ******************************************************
"Who's next?!" Mike shouted - maybe a little bit out of breath but never
seeming to grow tired of playing with us - and a dozen voices all
responded in nearly identical fashion . . .
"Me! I am! It's my turn! No; mine!" Mike grabbed the closest volunteer
by her arms and, holding firmly onto her thin wrists with his big hands, he
began to spin her around and around while leaning back against the
centrifugal force which was created. In the mid-sixties it was play time
again in our grandparent's expansive upper yard and, as usual, Mike
was in charge of the entertainment.
Soon this latest adventurer's arms and legs were extended straight out as
she found herself flying several feet off the ground in a twirling circle of
delight and near-fear while quietly screaming, "Stop - stop - stop . . . I -
can't - breathe . . . " Then Mike laughed out loud as he slowed his
spinning and allowed her to return gently to the earth and roll around in
the grass under the chestnut trees while giggling away the exhilaration
and regaining her breath.
"Next!" he'd shout again, and we'd all run toward Mike, who, at 6' 3" tall,
was probably one of the world's largest human thrill rides - for yet another
turn, time after time after time . . .
It seemed as though our lives - our youth - would never end. Mike was
the first and the oldest, but he was also the first to go, so he will
forever be the youngest of us all.
************************************************************************
Mike's name is appropriately inscribed on "The Wall" of the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and I've sought it out each
time I've visited that impressive, sobering monument since its construction back in 1993.
These links; http://www.ec47.com/thewall.htm and http://www.thewall-usa.com/
will provide you with more information about the type of unarmed aircraft in which Mike and his crewmates flew, the nature of their mission, their ultimate fate, and the precise location of Mike's name on "The Wall". And, at this link; http://www.virtualwall.org/ Mike's name can be entered into the search engine where it will provide additional information about him as well as a brief comment from another radio operator who had served with him in Vietnam.
Mike and others like him have also been honored elsewhere for their
bravery and courage. In 1998, Mike's parents received a letter from the
United States Department of Defense, recognizing that while serving
as cryptologists with the National Security Agency since its formation
in 1952, Mike and 151 others had made the "ultimate sacrifice" as
"they served in silence". Along with those other heroes, Mike's name
is listed on a monument located within the National Cryptologic Museum
at Fort George G. Meade near Baltimore, Maryland. You can read more
about this additional information at; National Security Agency Central Security Service > About Us > Cryptologic Heritage > National Cryptologic Museum
Were those other 58,225 soldiers - whose names are etched on "The Wall" of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial... or those other 151 individuals - whose names are inscribed on the cryptologic monument... as essential and important to their families as Mike was to ours? Are they missed as much as he is today, more than thirty years after his death?
My answer to those questions is quite simple: Yes, probably so. I have
no doubt that they were all special and unique to their families and friends and other loved ones.
Of two things I am absolutely certain - I will always miss him, and
there was only one Mike.
|
Steve McGraw
