State High grad dies in helicopter crash in Afghanistan

Ed Mahon

After his third tour of duty in Iraq, Michael Edward Weston wanted to decompress. So in the summer of 2007, he decided to kayak about 2,300 miles down the Mississippi River, from Minnesota to New Orleans.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Barack Obama, left, Army Assistant Judge Advocate Maj. Gen. Daniel Wright, second from left, Army Special Forces Commander Brig. Gen. Michael Repass, center, and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norman Schwartz, right, salute as they participate in the dignified transfer event Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009, at Dover Air Force Base, Del., for 18 bodies of Americans, including State High graduate DEA Special Agent Michael Weston, who were killed recently in Afghanistan. Soldier second from right is unidentified. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

View larger

“He had planned it to take two months, which was sort of reasonable,” said his mother, Judy Zarit, of State College. “He did it in one month.”

Friends and family members say Weston, 37, of Washington, D.C., brought that same devotion, dedication

and passion to every aspect of his life: as a student at Harvard Law School; as the writer of the family’s humorous Christmas letters; as the minister at his brothers’ weddings; as a Marine major leading troops in Iraq; and as a Drug Enforcement Administration agent fighting the opium trade in Afghanistan.

“He cared about love of country, and ultimately, living life to the fullest,” said Damon Stevens, 36, who served with Weston in southern Iraq in 2003, during the beginning of that war.

“He always had to complete what he started,” Weston’s mother said in a telephone call from Washington, D.C.

Weston, a 1990 graduate of State College Area High School, was killed Monday, along with nine other Americans in a military helicopter crash in Afghanistan. He was among three DEA special agents deployed with troops returning from a drug raid in the western part of the country.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

Weston, Forrest N. Leamon, 37, of Woodbridge, Va., and Chad L. Michael, 30, of Quantico, Va., were the first fatalities in the DEA’s counter-narcotics operations in Afghanistan.

Zarit said her son believed in his mission, and had told her that in order to stop terrorism, “you had to do something to stop the drug traffic.”

Matt Zarit, 27, said his most vivid memory of his half brother is when Michael, who went by Mike, left State College to earn computer science and economics degrees from Stanford University in California.

“I was really devastated because he was such a big part of my life and was going so far away for school,” Matt, who was a third-grader at the time, said in an e-mail.

When Matt came home from school that first day his older brother was gone, he found two things on his bed:

“One was a note from him telling me how much he loved me, and the other was a rubber chicken,” Matt said, adding: “He was very compassionate, but also always wanted to make people laugh.”

Before dawn Thursday, President Barack Obama and the leaders of the U.S. Justice Department and the DEA traveled to Dover Air Force Base to meet the plane carrying Weston and 17 other Americans who recently died in Afghanistan.

The president met with families in the chapel, where they sat in groups of three. A military representative introduced each group, and the president engaged in quiet conversation as he clasped women by the hand or laid his hand on men’s shoulders.

“It was the saddest room I’ve ever been in; grieving families from all walks of life,” said Michael Weston’s father, Steve Weston, of Lake Arrowhead, Calif. “It hurt so badly, and here he is, trying to offer comfort. And I respect him for that.”

Judy Zarit appreciated the dignitaries being there, and she mentioned to Obama that he and her son graduated from the same law school.

It was while a student at Harvard in the 1990s that Weston decided to join the Marines.

“He was looking to do something that he felt was more important ... to do something that was bigger than himself,” said Matt Zarit. “I think he found a certain brotherhood.”

Weston served three times in Iraq, in three different jobs.

He served in Kuwait and then Iraq from January to June 2003, as a military lawyer in southern Iraq, helping to set up a prisoner of war facility.

After leaving active duty in late 2003, he alternated between work with the DEA in Richmond, Va., and the Marine reserves.

From January to November 2005, he was a combat engineer, training Iraqi soldiers in Anbar province. From August 2006 to May 2007, he led soldiers stationed on a ship.

“Here’s a person that really, he could’ve done anything, he had a pedigree and intelligence to do anything. And it really stands as testament to his character, the life that he chose, the life of service,” said Stevens, who added that most people didn’t know about Weston’s prestigious academic background. Once, after being told to hang up his diploma in his office, Weston had his mom send him one from kindergarten or preschool.

“He just is a grounded person,” Stevens said, slipping into the present tense. “He didn’t take himself too seriously.”

On Weston’s first tour, at the start of the invasion of Iraq, he was unable to contact his relatives often. But on the other tours, he made it a point to call them at least once a week.

On Thursday evening, his mother said the loss hadn’t fully hit her yet and probably wouldn’t until they start missing his phone calls.

Right now, Judy Zarit said, “it just feels like he’s away.”

A memorial service will be held for Weston on Nov. 6 at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va.

Weston is also survived by his wife, Cynthia “Cindy” Tidler, of Washington, D.C. The two were married in May. Weston left for Afghanistan in July but was able to make it back home for Matt’s wedding on Oct. 2. He officiated the ceremony, having become legally ordained online years earlier through the Universal Life Church. He had been the minister for the marriage of his brother Thomas, too.

“It meant everything to me,” Matt Zarit said. “It was so personal and so genuine ... He was just such a charismatic person.”

Ed Mahon can be reached at 231-4619. The Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune contributed to this report.