Tell us more about your Brother and your Dad, both so young. We're here to listen and help if we can.
Thanks so much for the welcome, Terry! I don't even know where to begin, but I'll start with my brother. This will probably be long and hard, but I'm glad you asked.
He was four and a half years younger than me. His name was Steven Craig, but we always called him Stevie. We shared a room while I was growing up...probably ten years together. A lot of it was on bunk beds until our room upstairs was finished. I waited a long time to have a sibling, so I was really excited when they brought him home. I actually had a sister in between me and him, but she died of SIDS as an infant. I don't remember her and didn't even know about her until my aunt's funeral when I was twelve. That's when my mom and dad took me to her gravestone. Her name was Lisa Michelle. I suppose that's a whole other issue. Right now, I want to talk about my brother, though.
He was a goofy kid. He was always getting in trouble at school for something, but people liked him so much he got away with most of it. He had a real infectious smile that just disarmed people. Nobody could stay mad at him for long. His main love in life was baseball. He played it growing up and collected baseball cards. That, collecting bottle caps, and playing with He Man figures was mostly what he did. We fought like kids do, but mostly we got along good. I do remember one time when he was running by me and I tripped him. I dislocated his elbow and we had to go to the emergency room. We didn't really fight a whole lot, though. He was a good kid. He just barely graduated from high school because he didn't try very hard. He just wanted his grades good enough to play ball. Somehow, he managed to squeak by with exactly enough credits to graduate. They didn't actually know if he'd have enough until grades came in on the day of graduation!
I went in the Army when he was in eighth grade and spent the next four years in Germany and Colorado, so most of what I know about his high school years comes from my sister. She's a year younger than him. I got out just in time to go to his graduation and took him to Iowa for his graduation present. He wanted to go to the real Field of Dreams. We had a great time on that trip. Then he left for the Army. His job in the Army was very technical, and my parents worried a lot about whether he’d do all right. He worked with satellite communications. He flourished, though!! He spent the first two years in Germany then transferred for Fort Bragg, North Carolina where he worked for 18th Airborne Corps’ commanding general! He bought my dad’s 1969 Camaro while he was in Germany. It was a show car, and he took it with him to Ft. Bragg. He was part of the aborted invasion of Haiti and had around thirty jumps while he was airborne. When it came time to re-enlist, he decided that he’d like to have a more exciting job, so he changed his MOS to forward observer and went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for that school. It was also easier to get promoted in that job. After the school, he was supposed to transfer to Korea. I went with my dad to visit him while he was there, and we spent a weekend in the hills fishing. We spent a couple nights in a motel, too. We watched movies there. He loved watching movies. That’s the last time I saw him alive.
While he was at Sill, somebody ran into his car at Fort Bragg. It wasn’t a huge accident, but there was some body damage. When he got back, he put it in the shop so it would be fixed when he got home. He didn’t want my dad to think he messed it up. Well, the shop owner tried to keep it. Every time my brother would go to the shop, he would have some new problem with it and want more money. Eventually, my brother was into the leave he was supposed to have at home before going to Korea and had spent most of his re-enlistment bonus. The crook was trying to use up his leave so he’d have to leave his car there. His First Sergeant finally went to the shop and demanded that the shop owner give my brother’s car back. He gave it back.
Stevie was almost out of leave, so he left right after he got his car back to drive back to Missouri. Somewhere east of Nashville, Tennessee, the wheels fell off the right side of his car and it spun around in the median. It spun around several times. This was late at night. We’re not sure exactly what happened after that, but he was hit by a tractor trailer standing off of the highway next to his car. He died immediately of traumatic brain injury. His head hit the pavement.
People from his unit took leave to come do the funeral service and honor guard. We were able to talk with them for nearly a week. That’s where we found out most of what we know happened with the car. His whole chain of command was there to a full, airborne funeral. It’s all really a blur. A female sergeant who was friends with him told us he’d yell,”Yeeehaaa!” every time they did a jump. They told us he had a girlfriend who was serious. He was planning on maybe marrying her after Korea. We never met her. When they folded the flag, they all took off their jump wings and put them inside of it. His friends from high school came and put a baseball they all signed in the casket. His battalion commander took his specialist rank off in the casket and gave him the promotion he was waiting to tell us about. It was like the entire town was in shock.
It was all just so horrible.
My dad was a deputy sheriff. He contacted the highway patrol in Tennessee to find out what happened to the car. They told him the lug nuts on that side were backwards and spun off. That’s why his wheels came off. He was actually murdered by that body shop owner. My dad made several trips to Tennessee to do an investigation of the scene. Eventually, there was a civil suit against the truck driver that my parents won. I’m not sure what all happened there. I lived across the state. I don’t think the body shop guy was ever charged for it, but I do think people from Stevie’s unit might have taken care of it on their own. I’m not sure. I never saw any of them again after the funeral.
I know this was really long, but I never really talk about Stevie. I don’t know if I’ve ever talked with anybody about most of this. Most people who know me now don’t even know I ever had a brother. When they ask about brothers and sisters, I usually just tell them I have a sister.
I did have a brother, though. His name was Stevie. He lived next to me for a long time and shared most of my childhood. He was a wonderful, funny human being with a beautiful smile. He had a girlfriend and a life and a future. All he ever wanted was to have a family and to live in the house we grew up in and coach baseball. He barely got to meet my wife. He never got to see my grandkids. He didn’t get to see the Cardinals win the World Series this year. It was all stolen from him over a stupid car. He was a good man, and I miss him. I miss him terribly every day.
Thank you for asking about him.