By Tisha EntwistleJune 16, 2020
(reprint Military Times)
The deputy commanding general of the Combined Arms Center-Training will retire from the Army on June 24, culminating a career that spans more than 32 years and includes deployments to Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kosovo, Iraq, Ghana, Nigeria, Israel and Afghanistan.
A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Brig. Gen. Stephen L. A. Michael was born in Guyana, South America in 1964, immigrated to the United States in 1979 and was commissioned into the Infantry in 1988.
After graduating high school in Newark, N.J. at the age of 16, Michael was approached by West Point. He said he didn’t even know what it was then. Three years later, after Michael became a United States citizen, he was finally able to report to West Point.
In a May 29 Facebook live address to the Combined Arms Center-Training organization, Michael said that his story could only have happened the way it did in the great country we live in.
“Greatest on the planet, no other nation like it,” Michael said. “It all starts with that constitution of ours… written not because of where we were, but where we aspire to be.”
Michael will officially retire during a ceremony at Fort Leavenworth June 24.
