Col. Michael Elliott Spiro II's Obituary
Colonel Michael E. Spiro, II, USMC (Ret.) of Annapolis, Maryland, died on Saturday, November 28, 2015 of natural causes. He was 86 years old.
Born September 1, 1929 in Berkeley, California, Spiro was the son of Lawrence L. and Sylvia S. Spiro. His father and grandfather were owners of Spiro’s Sporting Goods. Established in the 1870s on Market Street in San Francisco, Spiro’s started out as a carriage and harness company, later evolving into sporting goods and outdoor equipment in the 1910s, expanding to surplus Army and Navy goods and ultimately moving to Palo Alto, California in the 1970s.
Spiro attended Stanford University, where he was captain of the rugby team for two seasons and a member of the campus fire house. He graduated with Stanford’s class of 1950.
Upon graduation, Spiro was commissioned in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving through 1976. He saw combat in two wars — Korea and Vietnam.
During the Korean War, Spiro served as an infantry platoon commander and a tactical air observer. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, five air medals and the Navy Achievement Medal. He made a total of 162 reconnaissance flights over North Korean territory.
His Korean War service was followed by a tour as a U.S. military advisor and assistant naval attache at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Japan.
In the early years of the Vietnam conflict, Spiro served as an advisor to the South Vietnamese military, returning later in that war to command the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines as it conducted amphibious warfare operations.
In 1968, he was appointed as the Marine Corps aide to Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., who commanded all naval forces in Vietnam. When Zumwalt was promoted to admiral in 1970 to head the Navy as Chief of Naval Operations, he requested Spiro as his Marine Corps aide.
The two officers not only developed a mutual respect for each other as professionals but also as friends.
Upon retiring in 1976, Spiro accepted a position as an international pharmaceutical sales and marketing executive, assigned to Europe and the Far East. The latter assignment enabled him to make use of his Asian language proficiencies developed during his military career.
A retired Admiral Zumwalt wanted to make use of Spiro’s talents to help in a number of humanitarian initiatives he had undertaken — and was able to entice Spiro into doing so.
Spiro became the Chief Operating Officer of the National Marrow Donor Program, chaired by Zumwalt. Later, as Zumwalt became concerned about the health impact of the nuclear radiation incident at Chernobyl, Spiro became the Executive Director of the International Consortium for the Health Effects of Radiation—established by Zumwalt to assess the dangers related to its nuclear fallout.
Spiro was married in 1951 to his high school sweetheart, Patricia Burke Stanfield, who died in 1987. His senior years of retirement were spent as an active resident of Bay Woods in Annapolis, Maryland.
He enjoyed sailing, traveling and is survived by his three children.
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