Major Gen. Austin "Sparky" Renforth, left, and wife Susan await his pending retirement. (Photo Provided)

WHEELING – The 41-year military career of Wheeling native and U.S. Marine Major Gen. Austin “Sparky” Renforth is coming to a close.

The Marines have set a formal retirement ceremony for Renforth for July 7 at the Marine Corps Base in Camp Pendleton, California, where Renforth presently serves as commanding general of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center.

Renforth, 59, says he expects to see “as many as 20 of his old friends from Wheeling” in attendance, as well as 300 of his military colleagues – many of whom he has known since his days as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

All are invited to a party on the beach in his honor after the ceremony.

“I feel an incredible sense of pride, but I am ready to go,” Renforth said. “I never believed I would be able to serve as long as I have.

“I think of all the differences in people’s lives I’ve made. That’s what keeps you going in this thing – making a difference in people’s lives.”

Renforth has been a general for the past nine years.

Prior to his assignment at Camp Pendleton, he was chief of staff for the U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) within the U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He received that assignment after he was the commanding general of Task Force Iraq in Baghdad, in command of all Marines serving in Iraq.

Many of those same Marines likely remember him from his days as the commanding general at Parris Island, the Marine Corps recruitment depot in South Carolina; or as the commanding general of the Marine Corps Training Command at Quantico, Virginia

Renforth said his biggest challenge as a military leader came prior to his promotion to general and during his 2004 deployment to Fallujah, Iraq earlier during the Iraq War.

“The amount of Marines lost there was unexpected,” he explained. “We thought we were just going to keep the peace there, then the war escalated….

“To take your units into combat – is not something many people get to do.”

Renforth attributed the foundation and fortitude he had as a leader to growing up in Wheeling.

“I was just a kid from Wheeling, West Virginia, trying to make a difference,” he said. “Never did I think when I left at 18 I would be a general. I was not from that demographic. I was just a public school kid trying to make a difference.”

He is a 1982 graduate of Wheeling Park High School, where he was class president and a member of the football team.

Renforth said one of the upperclassmen he most looked up to in high school was Bernie Dolan, who this week announced his retirement as executive director of the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission.

“He was ‘a beast’ on the field, but off the field he was always the nicest guy and kind to the underclassmen,” he said of Dolan.

Renforth noted that during his career nobody has deserved more credit than his wife, Susan Dodge Renforth, who is also a Wheeling native. They have been married for 32 years.

“I wasn’t always the best husband,” he said. “I was focused on duty, and some would say I found duty in the Marine Corps to be more important. Sometimes it had to be.”

The Renforths have five children. Their oldest son – also called “Sparky” – is in the U.S. Army, and younger son Max is a Marine.

Their daughters Jessica and Chloe each live in Colorado ear where the family lived during Renforth’s deployment with NORAD. And youngest daughter Olive is a student at the University of North Carolina near where the family lived while stationed at Parris Island.

“I guess when you’re being deployed at many places and moving around, you drop them off as you go,” Renforth joked. “It comes time when they want to get out of the house, and they stay where you leave them out.”

After retirement, Renforth said he and his wife will become “snowbirds” and split their time between Colorado and Arizona.

Renforth recently picked up golf as a hobby, and he plans to do some hunting and fishing.

“A lot of people are wearing me out trying to hire me,” he said. “But if I work, it will be on my terms. I don’t have to take these jobs.”

Renforth said as a young man he took an oath to serve and protect a nation – “not a person” – and that he has always taken that oath seriously.

Sometimes he observes today’s young recruits and wonders if they are up to the challenge.

“I worry about their resilience, and their ability to handle adversity,” Renforth said. “We just have to teach them.

“We still get the same kind of young men and women that we always did – those who want to be something special and serve their country. I’m proud we still have the same kind of young people, but I do think we were a little tougher.”

The young servicemen and women need to be nurtured, he continued.

“Sometimes when you’re cold, wet and tired in a foreign country … these soldiers need someone to come in and take care of them,” Renforth said. “I loved them like my own children.

“If you’re going to ask them to put their lives down, there has to be a loving relationship. People will do some pretty courageous stuff when they love each other.”

He added that life in the military is a good career choice, but that “it is up to the individual.”

“What I would advise young people is to live a life of purpose,” Renforth said. “Use your talents to give back — as a teacher, a first responder or in the arts. Find a way to give back.

“The way I found to give back was in the military. It’s something you have to want to do. It’s a calling.”