Kevin Nave
Major, United States Marine Corps
February 22, 1967 – March 26, 2003
Age – 36
White Lake, MI
Operation Iraqi Freedom
3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, CA
Killed in a nonhostile vehicle accident during a dust storm in Iraq.
Marine Maj. Kevin G. Nave graduated in 1985 from Waterford Kettering High School, where he was on the varsity football and wrestling teams. After high school, he went to the University of Michigan on a Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship. He graduated in 1989 with a degree in political science.
Just an hour before President Bush’s deadline to Saddam Hussein, he appeared on NBC News and declared himself ready for war: “We will use all of our skill and the tools of our trade to take the fight to the enemy.”
One of his men said the lessons he learned from Major Nave will never be forgotten and always appreciated. Major Nave was on the very short list of making him the Marine he was.
“The 3/5 had returned from Okinawa mid-2002 and the battalion went through the many, standard changes that battalions experience when they return from a float. The XO (Executive Officer) was leaving, a good guy who we all liked and trusted (we being the Lieutenants of H&S in charge of the different sections since it is the XO we report to directly). We knew him, liked him; were used to him. The XO leaving naturally meant a new one was on his way, and this coming right along with the news that we “might be going to Iraq”…”Okay, we are going to Iraq!”…”Nope, not going, stand down”…”Yes, going!”…etc, etc; to say it was confusing, frustrating and stressful was an understatement. Bewildering is a word that often comes to mind.
I was to take over as one of the more senior officers of a section that essentially the XO is most responsible for even though we run it, so I knew I would have a lot of contact with this new XO. I remember sitting out in town one night in Oceanside when one of the Lt’s said he had met the new XO that day, a decent enough seeming guy. A bit of a relief, but as usual first impressions are just that, a first impression and not much more than that.
Major Nave was that new XO and turned out to be exactly what the battalion needed at the time. A calm, cool, level headed guy; efficient, experienced, determined, professional. As we got closer to heading to Iraq once it was solidified we were going, my section got busier and busier with more and more responsibility everyday and I had never worked in my position in the section in any training environment or while just at Camp Pendleton so my learning curve was steep. I was finally in a more senior position and was doing it for real. I was learning through the school of hard knocks and some knocks I was certainly taking.
Major Nave saw the stress. He saw it, recognized it and kept everything and everyone in check. I would report to Major Nave the status of things and he would reply with a “Good. Now sit down and relax for a second.” We would talk about whatever for a minute, maybe an experience in Desert Storm or something that happened at his last command; it was just a minute to actually forget about the real stress around which was what I needed to then return to the work a bit more relaxed and level headed and ready to do a better job, which I always did.
That was the key of Major Nave. He knew that calm, cool and collected Lt’s do better work and better work meant better results once we arrived in Kuwait and then Iraq. He also understood my inexperience which was hard for me to admit to; I wanted to do an excellent job, but I barely knew what I was doing at all. He knew all of this so he demanded perfection in a professional and level-headed way. Even when I could tell he was a little stressed himself he was just collected and professional and his decisions seemed effortless. I decided that was certainly the way to go about all of this.”
Early in the evening on the night our buses were taking us to the flight to Kuwait we sat in my office and talked about the future of Iraq and his past experiences in Iraq, in Desert Storm. We were on the last flight, the vast majority of the battalion already in Kuwait, we being the clean-up crew making sure everyone and everything was headed to Kuwait correctly. His stories were hilarious and it made me realize everything was going to be okay. Some bad stuff could happen, but it was all a part of the job we had signed up for. I certainly knew that, but it was refreshing to talk to someone who had been through something already in Iraq explaining this or that about what we could experience. The calm, cool and collected professionalism that he portrayed and that he taught me to portray had paid off; nerves were relaxed, gear was on its way, the rest of the battalion already working in Kuwait. Major Nave was the key to 3/5 being so prepared to go to Kuwait, and therefore Iraq and since 3/5 was one of the first into Iraq, he was by default one of the keys to the success we saw there.”