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Family receives dreaded call

Michael Schafer, popular as a student athlete and a friend to many, dies in Afghanistan as he shouts warnings to his squad.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published July 28, 2005

	[Times photo: Keri Wiginton]
	Karen Barr looks at pictures of her son, Staff Sgt. Michael W. Schafer (right), 25, in her Spring Hill home Wednesday. Schafer was killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan on Monday; he is the first soldier from Hernando County to be killed in current combat in Afghanistan or Iraq. Schafer's wife, Danielle, had talked to him by webcam Sunday.

SPRING HILL - Michael Wayne Schafer was born Aug. 16, 1979, in Waukegan, Ill. He weighed 6 pounds flat. He was not a fussy baby.

He watched Sesame Street a lot.

Then he liked He-Man toys.

His mom called him Michael Wayne when she got angry, which was not often.

He always loved her banana pudding with Nilla Wafers, and pizza, and "poor man's lasagna" with cottage cheese instead of ricotta and smaller noodles.

A month ago in Afghanistan he ate boiled goat. His favorite food eventually became anything but an MRE, the military's Meal Ready to Eat.

He moved here from Crown Point, Ind., when he was in the fifth grade. He started at Spring Hill Elementary. He did a science project growing plants in plastic foam cups with a boy named Derek Saunier.

"We got a good grade," Saunier, who lives in Clearwater, said Wednesday.

Michael played Little League at Deltona Park.

He liked the scariest rides.

He sat with the cool kids in the back of the bus in middle school.

He won the Iron Man trophy playing eighth-grade football for coach Bill Vonada. The trophy's still in the attic at his parents' home here.

Basketball was his favorite sport, and Michael Jordan was his favorite player. He had posters of him all over the wall in his room and even a life-size cardboard cutout in the corner. He once told his mom he was going to name his first child Michael Jordan: Michael Jordan Schafer.

In driveway pickup games, his best move was straight to the hoop: full speed, straight ahead. When he played for the school, he dived for loose balls and cheered the loudest from the bench, good friend Ricky D'Angelo said.

"Always taking one for the team," said D'Angelo, who lives in Spring Hill and works in Tampa.

His first job was as a bus boy at Guido's pizza parlor on Forest Oaks Boulevard. The waitresses loved him.

"Mike was definitely a good catch for a girl," friend Cody Silagyi of Brooksville said.

As a senior at Springstead High School, he had off campus lunch, and he and his friends would eat at Taco Bell or Subway on the corner of Mariner and Spring Hill.

"He wasn't popular because he was flashy," Vonada said. "He was popular because he was genuine."

Once, at the corner of Mariner and Linden, he got into a bad car wreck in his two-door Ford Escort. He had to be taken away in a Bayflite helicopter. He got baptized after that at Spring Hill Baptist Church.

God was looking after him, everybody said.

He graduated from Springstead in 1998. He worked as a lifeguard at Weeki Wachee Buccaneer Bay and then the Innsbrook resort down in Palm Harbor.

He enlisted in the Army in January of 1999 at the storefront recruiting office behind the Applebee's near the junction of State Road 50 and U.S. 41.

He wrote his mother a poem.

It ended like this: "I want you to know that as I leave for the Army, if you are feeling scared do not be afraid to show it. Your love for me won't let anyone harm me. I'll be back home before you know it."

He did basic training in Fort Benning, Ga., then Airborne training in Fort Bragg, N.C. He reupped after his first three-year tour. He would have gotten out in January 2007.

He was married Dec. 30, 2000, at the Forest Oaks Lutheran Church, to the former Danielle Daye. Their honeymoon was in a hotel room on Clearwater Beach.

He had to be in Kosovo within the week.

"Last time I saw him, he said to me, "I'm jumpin' out of planes,"' Silagyi said of a conversation they had five years ago. "And I said, "Bro, are you crazy?' And he said, "Bro, I love it."'

One day in Kosovo, one of his fellow soldiers on the peacekeeping mission dared him to eat a grub for five bucks. Mike ate two.

He was one of the first paratroopers to jump into Kirkuk, Iraq, in March 2003. He helped secure a landing strip. He did nine months there.

Two of his good friends were killed in Iraq. He got a tattoo on his leg. It had a cross, a star and dog tags that were red, white and blue. "My Fallen Brothers," it said.

His parents were relieved when he was sent on his second combat tour to Afghanistan instead.

"But he wanted to go back to Iraq," said his mom, Karen Barr. "He wanted to be where the action was."

The last time he was home was Christmas.

"He felt like he was 25 and hadn't really accomplished a whole lot with his life because his friends had houses and babies," his mom said.

"He felt like he was falling behind," his stepfather Dan Barr said. "He said, "God, Dad, I'm a quarter-century old."'

He had talked about being a paramedic, a police officer, a firefighter - maybe even a Secret Service agent - but he went back to his home base in Vicenza, Italy, in January, then left for Afghanistan in April. He was to be there for a year. He had time off scheduled for October.

On Sunday night, Dan Barr said, Danielle was at her home in Fredericksburg, Va., and talked to her husband on a Web cam.

He was killed around 6 a.m. Afghanistan time Monday. He was on a patrol near Kandahar, in a town called Oruzgan when he was shot once. He was up front as a squad leader. He told his squad to run, which is when he was shot again.

Men from the Army knocked on Danielle's door Monday night around 8.

She called her in-laws.

Two men knocked on the door in Spring Hill two hours later.

Staff Sgt. Michael Schafer, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, is the first soldier from Hernando County to be killed in current combat in Afghanistan or Iraq.

His body is in Dover, Del., waiting to be transported by commercial airline to Tampa. He will be buried in Florida Hills Memorial Gardens.

In addition to his parents and his wife, he is survived by his brother Tim, of Orlando, and grandparents Ron Forbes and Stan and Loretta Barr, all of Spring Hill.

Michael Wayne Schafer would have turned 26 next month.

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352-848-1434.

[Last modified July 28, 2005, 01:09:17]