A world away from his childhood home of Canton, far from the mill town streets where he and his younger brother Jim would cruise around on Friday nights, Parrott was five months into his second tour of duty. A 49-year-old former Army reservist who signed up with a Pennsylvania Army National Guard unit, he served alongside soldiers who were young enough to be his children. As family and fellow soldiers would attest, he was something of a father figure to them.

Parrott was more than a soldier. His zest for adventure led him to take up trail running and ultra-marathons. An avid hiker, biker and cross-country skier, Parrott thrived in the great outdoors and biked every day to Colorado State University, where he and his wife worked. Married for 19 years to his best friend, he had a life many would envy.

Then came the news no one expected, the day when family and friends would have to speak of Parrott in the past tense.

On Nov. 10, the day before Veterans Day, when Americans honor U.S. military, Staff Sgt. Michael Calvin Parrott and 27-year-old Sgt. Joshua A. Terando were killed by small enemy fire while patrolling in a tank in Al Khalidiyah about 60 miles west of Baghdad. Parrott became the first Haywood County native killed in active duty since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003.

Finishing Well

On an icy cold Saturday afternoon, Nov. 19, the same day President Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address speech after one of the bloodiest battles in Civil War history, about 200 people gathered at Wells Funeral Home in Canton to honor their native son. Parrott received a full military funeral that included a posthumous awarding of the prestigious Bronze Star and Purple Heart medals, a 21-gun salute, the playing of “Taps,” and the formal flag folding ceremony dedicated to soldiers killed in action. It was the first such military funeral Wells Funeral Home had done in 30 years — not since the Vietnam era.

Among those sharing remarks at the funeral were military chaplains from Parrott’s Wyoming and Pennsylvania National Guard units; the Parrott family’s pastor, Rev. Alice Day; and family friend David Burrell. Parrott’s commanding officer from the Wyoming National Guard read a letter from Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal offering condolences to the Parrott family.

“Freedom comes at a great price,” said Chaplain David Hall of the Wyoming Army National Guard. Then, facing the Parrott family, Hall added, “He died loving you and loving his country.”

Burrell, a close family friend, remembered Parrott as a passionate man who inspired those around him to “finish well” in the long distance race of life, alluding to Parrott’s longtime love of running.

The ceremony was also a personal reflection of Parrott’s endearing, free-spirited personality. Teary-eyed friends and family found themselves grinning as the guitar riffs of Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” played during the indoor funeral ceremony. Other music selections included Ralph Stanley’s “O Death” from the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack and old-time favorites “I’ll Fly Away” and “Amazing Grace.”

Best Friends

Parrott graduated from Pisgah High School in Canton in 1974. A member of the Jr. R.O.T.C program at Pisgah, he later joined the military after struggling as a sociology major at Western Carolina University. While in the U.S. Army, he was stationed in California and Panama. He came back to Western North Carolina and finished up his bachelor’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. That’s where he met his wife, Meg Corwin, in the mid-1980s.

Corwin, a Franklin native and the daughter of Leo and Betty McIntyre, was working on her bachelor’s degree in political science while Parrott worked for the university’s maintenance department. They got married in 1986, and when Corwin got a graduate teaching assistantship at Colorado State University, the couple moved out to northern Colorado. Mike went to work for the facilities department at Colorado State, and Meg would eventually earn her doctorate and become an adjunct political science professor there.

They fell in love with the Rocky Mountains and the great outdoors. They’d go cross-country skiing, hiking, biking, trail running. They’d run up Bighorn Mountain, race in ultra-marathons, bike across Wyoming.

“Mike and I loved the mountains out there,” she said. “We did it all together — best friends for 20 years. We were each other’s best friends.”

A life that never stopped moving

After 15 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve, Parrott wanted to pick up five more years of service in order to earn retirement benefits. His Colorado unit, however, disbanded during the military cutbacks of the George H.W. Bush administration, a period of post-Cold War downsizing nationwide. Parrott was left without a local Army Reserve unit, so he crossed the state line and joined up with the Wyoming National Guard in Cheyenne.

After the war in Iraq began in 2003, Parrott shipped out on a tour of duty to Kuwait with the 115th Forward Artillary Brigade. In his late-40s, Parrott was twice the age of many soldiers stationed overseas, but friends and family say he was eager to serve and helped mentor younger soldiers.

“He was just like that — a very sweet fellow,” Corwin said.

And while he didn’t believe in the Iraqi war and opposed Bush politically, he was willing to serve his country, she added. The two loved to talk politics, but his willingness to serve outweighed any political ideals.

“He still loved the things his country stood for,” she said. “He lived to point out the ironies of life.”

After finishing his first tour, he looked for a way to go back to the Middle East, and this time to Iraq. He came home to Canton for three weeks at Christmas and then returned again in April to be with his family just weeks before his father, L.C. Parrott, died. Mike stayed in town a few weeks after his father’s death and met with the family’s pastor, Rev. Alice Day, to make his own funeral arrangements, should he need them.

Robin Corn, a family friend who grew up with Parrott and went to school with him at Pisgah, remembers talking in April when the soldier came home to be with his father. Parrott came by Lonestar Motors in Canton where Corn worked and the two chatted.

“It just never entered my mind that anything would happen,” Corn said.

Determined once again to support his fellow troops in Iraq, Parrott signed up with the 28th Infantry Unit from Pennsylvania. He shipped out from Mississippi in June for a 12-month tour. This time, he’d be going into Iraq. Pennsylvania units had suffered some of the highest casualty rates among U.S. military troops during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Parrott was replacing a soldier who had been killed in the war.

This time over, things had changed.

“He began to realize it really was dangerous,” said Mike’s mother, Suzanne Parrott, a retired Pisgah High School health occupations teacher and award-winning Hospice volunteer. “I still don’t believe we should be there.”

According to Parrott’s wife, Mike was stationed at a base about 60 miles west of Baghdad. He patrolled in a tank division along the Euphrates River in the infamous Sunni Triangle, an area of west-central Iraq notorious for hostile attacks against U.S. troops.

But Parrott was thrilled to be there. He sent off emails, letters, and packages to his family. Just last month, he sent his niece, Lindsay, a collection of four hand-carved elephants. Mike’s brother, Jim, of Greenville, S.C., got a letter gushing about the high-tech capabilities of the Abrams tank.

“I could smell the testosterone through the ink,” Jim said.

There were still so many questions Jim wanted to know about Iraq, questions he will never know the answers to, having lost his only brother, his older brother, the brother he’d wrestle with in the yard and compete against and tease. Only a year-and-a-half apart in age, they grew to respect each other though separated by miles and time zones.

“It was all good love here,” Jim said.

Iraq seemed so far away it didn’t really register in Jim’s daily life, but now he thinks about it a lot more — and especially of the U.S. soldiers still stationed there.

“We really need to keep them in our thoughts,” Jim said.

Michael Parrott will be honored in three different states. In addition to the funeral in Canton and recognition from Wyoming’s National Guard and governor, Colorado State University has scheduled an afternoon memorial service Dec. 2 in its university student center.

Michael Calvin Parrott, husband, father, brother, son, soldier and seeker of adventure, will find his way back to the Rocky Mountains this fall. Meg Corwin is taking her husband’s ashes to Colorado and plans to scatter them in the high country he loved so much — a fitting tribute for a man who never stopped looking for new places to discover.