From immigrant to general officer, Michael set to retire after 32 years of service

By Tisha EntwistleJune 16, 2020

Brig. Gen. Stephen Michael to retire
Brig. Gen. Stephen Michael, deputy commanding general for Combined Arms Center–Training, was the keynote speaker at the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth Black History Month luncheon Feb. 6, 2020. “Of our history, if we choose not to learn from it, to confront it head on, both the goodness and the badness, the truth; if we choose to excuse and overlook those things about our past that are uncomfortable, or think that the telling of it no longer matters, we then give it power and the ‘sins of the father’ are in play,” Michael said. “Run to the light, for darkness cannot abide in the light. We are not responsible for the actions and decisions of our forefathers. They have no power over us unless we give it, unless we make it so, unless we perpetuate the actions and beliefs, and do not understand the legacy those actions and beliefs now leave behind and that, where necessary, must be undone.” Michael will retire from the Army with 32 years of service during a ceremony June 24, 2020 at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Photo by Tisha Swart-Entwistle, Combined Arms Center-Training Public Affairs. (Photo Credit: Tisha Swart-Entwistle - Combined Arms Center-Training Public Affairs) VIEW ORIGINAL

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. Because of the current guidelines regarding COVID-19, attendance at the ceremony is limited but the event will be livestreamed via the Combined Arms Center-Training Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/usacactraining/ beginning at 11 a.m. CST.

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