Excerpts from article published on 5/22/2015 in San Diego Union-Tribune in series on “Veterans Who Made A Difference To Their Country”:

PROUD MARINE AND SOLDIER

Specialist Curtis Robert Spivey's legs were shattered when an explosion sent him rocketing through the turret of a Humvee.  The Baghdad rocks he landed on 40 feet away broke his back and injured his brain.  The IED that was detonated September 16, 2006, not only crumpled and paralyzed his body, it blew up his psyche.  Haltingly, he worked to find a way back to physical and mental health, a journey interrupted by the questions and desolation that affect anyone who has endured such trauma.  But even as Spivey began to realize that he could fashion a new life the concussive effects of that day on security patrol played out.  A blood vessel that had been weakened in the bomb blast gave way in his brain while he was a patient at the VA hospital in La Jolla, and Spivey died April 2, 2007.  He had spent three combat tours in Iraq, two with the Marines and one with the Army.  "He was the topside gunner in a Humvee when it happened," said Joe Spivey, Curtis' father, a Chula Vistan who retired from the Navy as a Command Master Chief after logging 30 years of service.  "He broke both legs coming out of the turret and then he hit the rocks."  Other troops in the vehicle also were injured, mostly with burns.  By far Spivey absorbed the worst of the damage. 

So began the anguish, even for a family accustomed to the military and what it demands.  Joe Spivey served during the Gulf War and the Iraq invasion.  His father, Curtis' grandfather, served aboard the minesweeper USS RAVEN as it worked to clear the English Channel off Normandy in June 1944.  "I was off the coast of Iraq (on the destroyer USS HIGGINS) when he was with the 1st MEF going into Baghdad," Joe Spivey said of the Marine Expeditionary Force that Curtis served with in 2003.  In 2006, when he received word that his son was wounded, Joe Spivey said "It was hard because I didn't know the extent of his injuries right away.  I know they got him out of Iraq as fast as they could."  The father was in San Diego, having retired from the Navy at that point.  His close friends in the service got him what news they could about his son.  The recovery was difficult.  Curtis and his wife, Aida, have a daughter who was 2 years old at the time and interaction with his little girl helped bring Curtis back from the depths family members have said.  "He really had a hard time accepting what happened to him," Joe Spivey said.  In the weeks that would turn out to be the last of his life, Curtis started to come around his father said.  Talks with a family acquaintance whom Joe Spivey described as a "very religious man" also helped.  A flicker of something that looked like hope was rekindled.  "It was hard to accept that he had died shortly after that," Spivey said. 

He laughed a bit when he remembered his son's entry into the military.  He said that as a teenager Curtis lacked focus and fell far behind his class in his junior year at Hilltop High School in Chula Vista.  "When he was in high school, he wasn't paying as much attention as he should have," Joe Spivey said.  Curtis worked with school administrators, teachers and his parents to get back on track and he did graduate with his class.  As for the next step in Curtis' life, it was revealed when Joe Spivey returned from a trip to Washington.  Curtis told him that he had joined the military. This is how Joe recounted the rest of that conversation:

     Father: "Navy?"

     Son: "Uh, no."

     Father: "Which branch?"

     Son: "Marines."

     Father: "Well, you want to get focus, you're going to get focus."

Curtis Spivey is among the few who serve in two military branches.  A few months after his four years and two Iraq tours with the Marines were up he joined the Army within months and was soon back in the war zone.  During his Army tour the family faced a different sort of tragedy when Curtis' older brother died of a heart problem in March 2006.  "Curt was able to come home for the funeral," his father said, a visit that included a conversation about death that Joe described as eerie.  "He said he didn't want to be cremated and he wanted to be buried in his Marine uniform," Joseph Spivey said.  When Curtis died there was little room remaining at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego and it is officially closed to casket burials.  But a career Navy man got help from the Army, a Major in particular, for a son who enlisted in the Marines.  Curtis Spivey's final wishes were granted.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)