MISSION FIRST: The Natural

Ten years have passed since their son died and yet Sue and Ray Reich still hear from the soldiers. They come from nowhere and everywhere – each with a word, a story, a memory they are compelled to share about Maj. Stephen Reich whose helicopter was shot down during an attempted rescue of four Navy SEALS under siege in Afghanistan.

As the soldiers speak, they say the same thing.

"I would follow your son into combat anywhere."

"What they are telling you as a parent is they have so much confidence in your son as a leader," Sue Reich says, "That was one of the most gratifying things anyone has ever said to me."

Once, Steve Reich was going to be a Major League baseball player. He had what the big league scouts loved: a big body, a strong left arm and a blazing fastball. He was smart, mature and unfazed when things went wrong. But he also had a dream – one molded on a high school trip to West Point to watch a friend play soccer. He saw majesty in the Academy. Everything about it held a challenge. And if there was anything Steve Reich loved, it was a challenge.

"I remember him coming home and saying he thought the cadets were – there's a term they used – 'squared away.'" Sue Reich says. "I think the process of getting in to West Point is so difficult and he liked that. Just being accepted is a feat in itself."

There was a time when Reich had to choose between baseball and West Point. It came following his second year at the Academy, when his baseball promise had blossomed enough to make him a legitimate prospect. He decided to stay, starting the clock on his five-year post-college military commitment. He made his decsion in peacetime, years before September 11, though there seems little doubt he would have picked something different in a world with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A commitment is a commitment. Once he walked into West Point he couldn't walk away.

He was 34 years old when he died on June 28, 2005 and he never got to know if his rugged left arm was good enough to take him to the Major Leagues.

As a child, Reich wanted nothing more than to be a baseball player. Ray Reich played baseball in their Ohio hometown and Steve went to all of his father's games. At home, the boy stood in front of the television, watching baseball, imitating the windup of the pitchers he saw on the screen, hoping one day that could be him.

Years later, after the family had moved to Washington Depot in northwestern Connecticut, he pitched at Shepaug Valley High School, a tiny school that was nonetheless a baseball powerhouse. College coaches noticed him. Strong Northeast programs like Connecticut and Maine tried to lure him to their campuses. Dartmouth and Princeton were interested, too. But his heart was set on the Academy. He applied through early admission, signaling it as his top choice. When he was accepted at West Point no place else mattered.

"West Point was a good fit for Steve," Sue Reich says.

He thrived academically his first two years – not an easy feat for someone playing a sport. He also pitched well; so well, in fact, that a baseball career seemed a reality. If he left West Point and transferred to another school before the start of his third year he would not be obligated to serve the mandatory five years in the United States Army, required of all cadets who make it to their third year at the Academy.

Sue Reich remembers the decision tormenting her son as he sought the opinion of his coaches, instructors and even his father. Ultimately he chose to stay.

"I wanted to see how I stacked up against the best kids," he told Adrian Wojnarowski of the Waterbury Republican-American at the time. "I wanted to see how far I could push myself. Before I came here I had no idea what my potential was."

Looking back, Sue Reich, thinks there was more to her son's choice. West Point is hard. Many of those who survive the rigorous admissions process leave early, overwhelmed by the rigors of life at the Academy. He couldn't be another cadet who walked away – even if he had the perfect excuse to do so. He had to prove he could survive a place that crushed so many others.

He had a double-language major, studying Spanish and Arabic. He began training to be an aviator because it was the most-glamorous of the disciplines at West Point and also one of the most difficult. But that was Steve. If there was a challenge he wanted to seize it.

After he graduated, baseball remained a possibility. In the mid-1990s, with the country relatively at peace, the government began cutting back on the size of the military. Exceptions to the five-year service requirement had been made for high-profile athletes like Navy basketball star David Robinson. Suggestions were made that Reich, who pitched well for Team USA at the 1993 World University Games, could get one, too.

Eventually, the military told Reich that if a team offered him a professional contract, he would be granted an exemption. Early in 1996 he reported to spring training with the Baltimore Orioles. The organization assigned him to its Class A squad outside Lancaster, Calif. He pitched two games and played another two in the outfield before the Pentagon rescinded his exemption. The Army needed pilots. Just a handful of games into his professional baseball career, he was called back.

"At that point he was 24, he knew that was the end of his baseball career," Sue Reich says.

She and Ray never went to see Steve play professional baseball. They had two daughters who were busy with sports themselves, getting to spring training was difficult and when he was sent to California they couldn't just fly across the country. There would be time, they figured. Nobody expected his baseball dream to end a few games after it began.

Sue Reich knew the callback was devastating to Steve. Here was a challenge he would never meet, but as she thinks back to that time she is reminded of something else, something that surprised her son and even disturbed him. After years of living the unrestrained joy that comes with playing on state championship high school teams and the shared purpose of academy life, Steve Reich was confronted with a kind of desperate ambition he didn't recognize or like.

"Maybe (baseball) wasn't all that it was cracked up to be," she says. "I remember him telling me this was the first time in his baseball career that guys on his team were not playing for everybody to be successful. Everybody was competing with everyone else for spots."

Back in the Army, Reich was sent to Germany and was soon flying helicopters through the conflict in Bosnia. A couple years later he went to Ft. Campbell, Ky., to begin training for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment known as the "Night Stalkers." Another challenge, something more to prove.

Then came September 11 and a series of deployments – mostly three months at a time – to the Middle East. Those next few years were torture for Sue and Ray Reich. Because of the nature of his work, Steve could say nothing about what he was doing or even where he was. When he called home, he was short on details, telling little about his life. Everything was cloaked in secrecy.

"He'd say he was 'down range' and you would have to put two-and-two together," Sue Reich says.

She and her husband became addicted to the news, constantly watching television for updates, unsure if he was in Afghanistan, Iraq or someplace else. Knowing Afghanistan – through a time zone quirk – is 9.5 hours ahead of her, Sue once asked Steve what time it was as they chatted by phone. Her son laughed.

"Nice try, Mom," he said.

At the end of each deployment, Steve returned home to Washington Depot, where he would take long hikes in the nearby hills. Sue always marveled at how comfortable he seemed in both Army boots and Birkenstocks. He rarely talked about what he had seen in combat. When he was home it was as if the battles had never happened.

After September 11, Sue and Ray parsed every war report for updates about battles, straining to hear any word about helicopters or special operations. When Steve's helicopter was shot down as he and 15 others attempted to rescue the four SEALS surrounded by Taliban troops in the Afghan mountains, it was big news. The story was everywhere, but details were sparse. No one said anything about the 160th or Steve Reich but deep down the Reichs knew. Years of piecing together clues made them savvy. The chance of the helicopter being Steve's was too great.

The next day a car pulled into their driveway and a soldier stepped out.

Every year as the anniversary of the attack draws near, a Facebook page, called Seal of Honor, remembers the 12 men killed in the attack by posting a picture of each in the days leading up to June 28. This year, on the morning Steve's picture appeared, the likes and comments poured in. Within a few hours, the photo had 4,000 responses. Sue Reich was amazed. She kept coming in the house from the garden to check the page and see the "likes" piling up. As with the words of the soldiers who still approach Sue and Ray this was another validation that said Steve had made a difference. He changed lives.

Sue Reich has read the Army's personnel reports on Steve. She has seen glowing notes from superior officers and sterling reviews of her son's work. The reports said he was an officer on the rise. They suggested he could someday be a battalion commander. They portrayed him as a leader. This leaves her with the satisfaction that Steve kept meeting challenges right up to his death.

"I think Stephen got the same kind of satisfaction about completing a mission as he did winning a tough game," Sue Reich says.

She knows the comparison is not exact. A baseball game is hardly a military mission with lives on the line. But the zeal with which he pursued both was the same. Her son loved baseball and he loved West Point and was determined to succeed at each.

As the 10th year after Stephen Reich's death began, a television network came to Washington Depot to do a story on the boy who loved baseball and West Point. Sue and Ray gave the network producers some video cassettes they had kept from his playing days including a mysterious one they had never watched. The cassettes were almost 20 years old, unable to fit in the family's DVD player. They hadn't been touched in years. The television producers took the cassettes and transferred them to a digital format, including that mysterious one Sue and Ray Reich had never watched.

The tape turned out to be an MTV interview Steve had done during spring training in 1996. He wore an Orioles uniform and he talked about choices and opportunity and the chance to live two dreams. Then the video showed him on the field. He ran and stretched and played catch with his teammates. As baseball images go they were mundane, far from anything special.

Except in the Connecticut house where Sue and Ray Reich finally saw their son play professional baseball.

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