navy advancement

navy advancement

A memorial scholarship fund has been established to honor the lifetime work of a Camp Lejeune Navy commander whose final deployment put him where he felt he could best help service men and women dealing with the stress of combat and being away from home.
Cmdr. Charles Keith Springle, 52, served in the U.S. Navy for 21 years as a licensed clinical social worker and devoted much of his career to counseling those suffering effects of combat stress, multiple deployments and related issues.
Springle, who was stationed at Camp Lejeune and deployed to Iraq, was killed last week in a shooting incident at the combat stress center where he worked at Camp Liberty in Baghdad.
To honor his memory, family and friends have established the Charles Keith Springle, Ph.D. Memorial Scholarship Fund through the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Springle completed undergraduate and graduate work at UNC-CH and received a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Alabama.
The scholarship will support military dependents in the Masters of Social Work program at the UNC School of Social Work who are working with military families or have an interest in mental health care for veterans and their families.
"With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, more and more soldiers are returning home needing support, more families need support. It's an increasingly important and urgent area for us to be addressing," said Mary Beth Hernandez, associate dean for advancement at the school.
The scholarship will help alleviate the financial burden of students while also serving as a permanent tribute to Springle and his work in the field, Hernandez said.
Supporting military personnel and helping them become more confident and capable in their ability to handle the issues they faced was what Springle strived for, recalls his sister-in-law, Marilyn Springle.
"His goal was, I think, to help them develop positive coping skills so they could function at the highest level possible," she said.
At Camp Lejeune he served as director of the Community Counseling Center, and on the home front he gave his time helping train mental health professionals and others to recognize and assess individuals with post traumatic stress disorder and related issues.
But a desire to serve where he felt he was most needed is what led him to Iraq.
"It's where he felt he could be of more help," said Marilyn Springle, who is married to Cmdr. Springle's brother, Thomas, a retired Navy commander.
Before his tour in Iraq, Cmdr. Springle spent a year at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where he worked with service members who had been wounded in combat. When he returned home in December 2007, he wanted to immediately take his expertise to the men and women serving at the heart of battle.
According to family, he volunteered in January of this year for deployment to Iraq.
He was sent to the Army 55th Medical Company and assigned to the Liberty Combat Stress Control Center at Camp Liberty.
It was there where an Army sergeant finishing a third tour of duty, allegedly shot and killed Cmdr. Springle and four others.
According to media reports, the shooter had been referred to counseling at the clinic.
Cmdr. Springle was greatly concerned for troop mental health, but he was equally known as a family man.
He and his wife of 25 years, Susan, have two children and a grandson. Their son and son-in-law are Marines who have each done tours in Iraq.
He was one of four siblings, with a brother and two sisters.
"He had a full life and was not just married to his work," his sister-in-law said. "His work meant a lot to him but he was also there for his family."
Friends and family also remember his zest for life, sense of humor, passion for music, and love for travel.
Cmdr. Springle grew up in Beaufort, moving with his family in his high school years to Sanford, where he graduated from Sanford Central High School.
His parents, Charles and Ruth, returned to the family home in Beaufort, where they still reside, while his life in the Navy took him to Alaska, Japan and Spain among other places.
He was last stationed at Camp Lejeune, bringing him back closer to home.
"I am glad he got to be home for a year; he had been gone a lot," Marilyn Springle said.
And while his deployment took him to Iraq, a Mother's Day phone call unknowingly gave him the opportunity to talk to his parents just a day before his death.
A funeral service will be held 2 p.m. Wednesday at Munden Funeral Home chapel in Morehead City. The family will receive friends from noon to 2 p.m. prior to the service at the funeral home.
Burial services will be held 9 a.m. June 16 at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA.
Contributions to the scholarship may be made to the UNC School of Social Work (payee); c/o UNC School of Social Work Development Office; 325 Pittsboro Street; Campus Box 3550; Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3550. For more information, contact Mary Beth Hernandez