Posted by Robert Catlin on April 10, 2013:

I met Mike Fry when we were roommates in F-1 during our Firstie year. Mike was incredibly bright and very easygoing. Since I lived in Newburgh, Mike was a frequent visitor at my parents' house and like another son to them. Conventional wisdom says you only have a few really good friends in your life, and I was blessed to count Mike as one of mine. We both bought MGBs upon graduation and we then went our separate ways. We kept in touch through the years via letters and later emails and we occasionally got together at West Point for one of my parents' football tailgates. Mike rose to the rank of colonel before retiring and we crossed paths again when we both lived in Springfield, VA. Mike was then doing great things at State Department through his work on the SALT Treaty. The United States could not have had a better man working on the job. After his retirement, Mike moved to California where his concern for others lead him to involvement with Big Brothers and a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. Mike touched the lives of hundreds of recovering drug addicts and alcoholics through his involvement there. At the end of his life, Mike was diagnosed with lung cancer, a fact he kept secret from those who knew him. His involvement with hospice at that point in his life was as much to learn how to die from the dying, as it was to provide aid and comfort to them. Although Mike certainly did provide comfort to all whom he met. Mike spoke of a cross-country train trip from California to Wisconsin in his last email. He was looking forward to seeing the vastness and beauty of God's creation in the Southwest and the Great Plains of America. Mike never made that trip because God had a better journey planned for him. May he rest in peace.

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