Editor’s Note: This article originally ran on July 3rd, 2023, but it’s perfectly relevant for Veterans Day and any other U.S. holiday that celebrates our veteran soldiers, our country, and our American history and heritage. Be thankful for those veterans who fought and lived — and fought and died — to give us our freedoms in the greatest country in the world — The United States of America.

Thomas Tormanen died for our country.

He was a 22-year-old United States Marine serving in Kuwait during the Persian Gulf war when a bunker collapsed on him on March 10th, 1991. Lance Cpl. Tormanen, of Milford, MI, died without ever seeing his son, Derek, who was born while the Marine was serving in Iraq. His father-in-law, John Heinonen, said at the time, “Tom never made it home to see his child. He only saw the baby through pictures in the mail.”

I talked to the grieving family and a week later attended the Marine’s funeral in Milford. The service was held at First Apostolic Church in Farmington Hills where it was standing room only. The Rev. Richard Pennala said of Tormanen: “As Tom conveyed in his many letters to home, it was his faith that gave him the strength to do the work he did. How Tom can be remembered is that he was called home believing in Heaven.”

All these years later, I found the articles that I wrote in my newspaper archives in the basement. I remember covering it and the story happened fast. I was working as a reporter for the Milford Times. My News Editor Matt Valley and I found out late March 12th that the tragedy had occurred. Of 219 total U.S. service men and women who died in the Persian Gulf War, Tormanen was one of them.

In a March 21st, 1991 article in the Milford Times, I wrote: Following the service it was tears first, then cars that joined in the funeral procession. Nearly 150 cars — escorted by the Farmington Hills Police Department — stretching more than a mile joined in the procession to the cemetery on a blustery winter day.

As mourners in the cold wind huddled together for warmth and support, a pastor surrounded by the group said his final words to Tormanen. Behind the hundreds at the cemetery, seven Marines gave Tormanen the traditional 21-gun salute. A bugler played “taps” to end the service.

As we should honor Tormanen this 247th Independence Day, we should also honor our U.S. military veterans and men and women who are currently serving in the military — people like my friends Shane Annan, Steve Lorway, Rob Zamora, Tom Bankstahl, Mark Auger, Val Pod and his son, Philip, who is currently serving, and my cousins, veterans Carl Varcie, Scott Burnett, and Mark Stambouly (RIP Mark).

I’d like to tell you a little more about two of our American superheroes. Not all superheroes wear a cape, but some wear the uniform of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or the Coast Guard.

Steve Lorway

Army Specialist 4 Steve Lorway from Mt. Clemens, MI, was an 18-year-old cocky, uninspired, undisciplined, irresponsible smart ass in August 1989 when he joined the United States Army. Hey – those aren’t my words. Those were Steve’s when I talked to him July 3rd.

About 4 months later, he was driving an M1A1 tank for the U.S. Army at Fort Bliss, Texas. Wait….What? I thought you just said….Ahhh, forget about that. Army Specialist 4 Lorway changed more in those 4 months than most people change in a lifetime.

“That’s what I signed up for. I wanted to drive a tank,” Lorway said. “What’s driving a tank like? It’s like you’re in a recliner. All set back. There’s a T-bar that comes to your waist and there’s a throttle like a motorcycle. You shift to drive or go in reserve and it moves. It was fast. It went over 60 mph. That was in Desert Storm.”

Lorway was referring to Operation Desert Storm in 1991, where he served in the Persian Gulf war and defeated the Iraqi army and its potent Republican National Guard troops of Saddam Hussein’s menacing army and regime.

Going to war as a 19-year-old now was not what he expected. And he never saw it coming.

“When we were going to war, I had just come home on leave. I didn’t spend 2 minutes watching the news. But when I got back to my base, they said you better get packing because we’re going to be leaving in X amount of days to Iraq. I was confused and they were like, haven’t you been watching the news? I called my mom and said we were going to be leaving for Iraq,” Lorway said. “My sister picked up the phone said `what did you tell mom?’….She said mom dropped the phone and just started crying.”

Lorway said he felt calm and confident going to Iraq. This is what he and the troops had been trained to do.

“I remember we flew out of Detroit Metro Airport. We were on Air Hawaii. We stopped in Iceland. I was Advance Party number 1. We went to the Port of Jabal and unloaded the Bradley tank shipments. We rallied until everyone got there 2 weeks later,” Lorway said.

Now remember — the undisciplined, irresponsible, smart ass Lorway was commandeering a tank. That was his job. But he loved it and by now, had completely changed into a responsible, disciplined adult man of the United States Army.

“Driving a tank was the best job I ever had. We would run over trees and abandon cars. Fully armed it was 27 tons. When we shot from it, it would jar you, but you recovered quickly,” he said. “The rounds were accurate from 3 miles away and they went 1 mph per second. So, if you were a target and saw the flash, you better get out of the way fast.”

When the war started, he said it was surreal for him.

“When the 100-hour war started, you’re sitting on your tank and look up to the sky and it was bomber after bomber after bomber. You see explosions in the distance and oil wells on fire. For a 19-year-old kid, it was a crazy experience,” he said.

During the war it was even crazier. Back home were told on the nightly news that Iraqi troops were laying down their weapons and surrendering as soon as the U.S. launched its “shock and awe” attack. That’s what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell called it at the time. Lorway said that’s exactly what he experienced.

“We were coming out of Kuwait on the tank. There was a dried up river bed and there were 30-40 Iraqi soldiers who came out with AK-47s. They had no shoes on and this was the desert,” Lorway said. “We thought that this is something that could go bad real quick. Instead, they all dropped their weapons, they tried to give us a bunch of money. They were starving and had no food and water. We put them on our tanks and took them to holding place (pow camp) where they were fed, given water and taken care of.”

He also recalled going into towns that were liberated and finding propaganda distributed by the Iraq government on the ground describing how Iraq was dominating the United States in the war. It was so far from the truth.

“The whole town would be bombed out and no one was left in these towns,” he said. “We’d find lockers in buildings full of AK-47s and rounds of ammunition. They just left them there.”

Once at the end of the war, Lorway and his tank unit encountered a mechanical problem.

“When we found out that the war was over, we took all our vehicles to a rally point to where we were going home. There was a 3-4 hour long ride for our convoy. Our convoy stopped running because of a mechanical problem with the tank. The rest of the vehicles left us there,” Lorway said. “They said that they weren’t holding up 400 armored vehicles for us.”

Finally, a mechanic drove through the desert to the sole tank convoy, fixed a simple problem, and Lorway, at the orders of his commander, drove “like hell” to meet back up with the convoy. Lorway pushed the throttle forward and did what his commander said….Drive. Like. Hell.

Since he’s been out of the Army, Lorway grew up — and really grew up. He grew 6 inches, lost a bunch of weight and totally transformed what he called was a short, fat guy physique. He married his wife Robin, and they raised their beautiful daughters Madison and Tatum. Now 51, he works as an engineering aide for Macomb County Department of Roads.

There’s one more surprising point to this story: After Lorway returned home from the Persian Gulf in March 1991, his mother joined the U.S. Army reserves a couple months later where she served as a nurse. Lorway said she finally left the Army at around 60 and was a Captain.

Lorway said that the longer that he’s out of the military, the more proud he is of serving his country. It pumps his chest out. It makes him happy and feel good.

“It taught me discipline and having more respect for others and about what’s right in front of you. You didn’t look out for yourself anymore, you looked out for other people, ” he said.

And support from the nation was rewarding.

“The support from people was amazing. As soon as we got off the plane from Iraq, the airport was loaded with people with signs thanking us and flags. People wanted to shake your hand and hug you. It fills your heart,” he said.

You fill our hearts, too, Steve Lorway and thank you for your service on this Independence  Day for America.

Shane Annan

Senior Master Sgt. Shane Annan, 48, of Chesterfield Township, studied in the Nursing program at Lansing Community College after graduating high school, but in 1993 he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force after funding dried up to continue paying for school. As a 19-year-old — after basic training — he got stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. It was hot in the desert and not a fun place for a 19-year-old, he recalled when we talked July 3rd. “Sure – once I turned 21 it got a lot better because I could do a lot more things.”

Annan served for 4 years, moved back to Michigan where he lived in Lansing and eventually married his high school friend Dana. After a few years out of the service, Annan said “I was feeling the itch” to get back in the military. So he rejoined it in April 2001 and joined the Michigan National Guard. He decided to serve at Selfridge Air Force Base in Harrison Township, MI, where he could service the F-16 fighter jets, which were stationed out of Selfridge. Eventually, those would be replaced by the A-10 Thunderbolts at the base.

Five months later, the unthinkable happened. Terrorists flew American jetliners into the World Trade Centers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and a field in rural Pennsylvania. Annan found himself back to active duty in “Operation Noble Eagle.” He served in that capacity in munitions from Sept. 2001 to February 2005.

In 2004, he was stationed in Kirkuk, Iraq, and when he returned home to Chesterfield Township, MI, in 2005, he began working as a civilian technician at Selfridge, while remaining in the Michigan National Guard. Today, Annan is Chief Inspector of the A-10 Quality Assurance at the base. He’s the one who makes sure the A-10 planes are safe to fly.

Many times since 2001, Annan has been deployed and had to leave his family behind. He’s seen time in Kirkuk, Iraq; Kandahar, Afghanistan; and Balad, Iraq. He’s seen other deployments to Saudi Arabia as well.

In Kirkuk, he saw the most action.

“I was there 98 days and I actually got an award from the guys there. It said, `Congratulations on surviving 250 attacks in 98 days, ” Annan said.

He said there was so much action around the air base that eventually he would get numb to the attacks. “When you first get there, you’re all paranoid. You have your flak vest and helmet on all the time and you hide under your desk whenever they would lob mortars at us. But after 50-60 days, you get used to it and stop crawling under your desk.”

He said he had 2 close calls. Once he was sleeping in his tent at an air base when a mortar landed about 20 feet away. He was fine, but shaken. But another time in Kandahar, he got a lot more rattled. While in a parking lot at the air base about 4:30 am while turning over cars to the next shift, an advanced defense test alarm system sounded. And that meant a mortar attack was coming.

“We immediately hit the ground and we were laying flat so if something exploded, we wouldn’t get hit,” he said.

As they laid on the ground, a mortar hit a 10-foot tall cement barrier that was nearby and exploded. The cement barrier saved Annan and the soldiers. “That really rocked us. I remember I was a little disoriented and couldn’t hear very well.”

Annan is blessed with a strong wife, Dana. And that has helped him immensely when he’s on a deployment.

“When you’re away, you think about family. But you need a strong support system. Dana is strong and she has a strong support system. When I’m away I can focus on my job and don’t have to worry about things at home because I know that she’ll get things done. Having that strong support system is the most important aspect,” he said.

Annan loves his country. He admitted he may not love every single thing about it, but he loves the freedoms that we have as Americans. And he loves the support that fellow Americans give him as well as other veterans and active duty service men and women.

Recently, he was honored at the Michigan Panthers football game at Ford Field where he got to meet players and the current USFL president. He’s also been honored on the field at Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions games. In one of his best memories he helped carry a 100-yard long American flag along with veterans, active duty service members, and some of their family members on Thanksgiving day at Ford Field during a nationally televised Detroit Lions football game.

“People go up to you and thank you for your service. There’s definitely an appreciation out there,” he said.

Yes there is my friend, and we salute you.

This Independence Day and Veteran’s Day as you are celebrating, remember our veterans and brave service men and women currently serving in the military. Remember Shane Annan and Steve Lorway and all of your friends and relatives who served our country.

And thanks to Steve and Shane who gave me the opportunity to share their military experiences for this blog. Below is a photo of them attending our friend Tom Hutchins’ Michigan-Michigan State football party.

God Bless the USA.