March 28, 2003
BY HUGH MCDIARMID JR.
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Marine Corps Maj. Kevin Nave, a native of Oakland County's White Lake Township, is Michigan's first known casualty in the war with Iraq.
Family members said military officials informed Nave's wife, Carrie, early Thursday that her husband had died in combat.
Kevin Nave was stationed at Camp Pendleton in southern California, where the couple lived with their son, Anthony, 6, and daughter Maeve, who turned 5 years old Thursday -- the day her family received the awful news.
It was unclear how or when Nave, 36, was killed. He was with the 1st Marine Division, 5th Marines, 3rd Battalion. As of Thursday evening, he was not listed on the military's tally of soldiers killed in action.
Family and friends talked quietly in the Nave's modest family home on the banks of the Huron River on Thursday. An American flag hung from the front porch.
"We lost Kevin," his mother, Anne Nave, said quietly before declining further comment.
Nave used to play and fish in the river behind his house, recalled a childhood friend, John Morey.
"He was always into sports, and he was in the ROTC and kind of always wanted to be in the Marines," Morey recalled Thursday.
Nave graduated in 1985 from Waterford Kettering High School where he was a two-year starting center on the school's football team and a varsity wrestler.
Teachers at the school received the news in a meeting Thursday afternoon. Only a handful are old enough to remember Nave, but those who do said he was an athletic, outgoing student.
"He was a very positive type personality, a school leader and a good citizen," said Ronald Zeeman, dean of students and a math teacher during Nave's years there. "The whole Waterford Kettering staff was proud of him. To have something like this happen, it really hits home."
After high school, Nave went to the University of Michigan, where he juggled academics and participation in the ROTC. He graduated in 1989 with a degree in political science, said family members.
He went to Marine officer's school immediately after college, said T.J. McCullough, a high school classmate and ex-Marine.
"He was motivated, focused and driven, but one of the nicest, most easygoing guys you'd ever want to meet," said McCullough. "I know he followed his dream. He was a career Marine."
McCullough said Nave was a veteran of the Persian Gulf War, but was unsure whether he saw combat during his tour of duty there.
In an NBC News interview on March 19, broadcast only an hour before President George W. Bush's deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq or face war, Nave said he was ready for combat.
"We will use all of our skill and the tools of our trade to take the fight to the enemy," Nave told NBC correspondent Chip Reid, broadcasting from the Kuwaiti desert.
A family friend who asked not to be identified said the tragedy is compounded by the deaths of Nave's maternal grandparents earlier this year. He was the oldest of the couple's 19 grandchildren, said the friend.
In addition to his wife, children and mother, Nave is survived by his father, Reno, a sister Katie and brothers Michael and Anthony.
