Michael James Little, COL, USMCR, RET.

Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Michael was born into a family of lawyers, and part of his life's course seemed almost to have been predetermined; but his life before taking up the practice of law was incredible and he often confided that it was a blessing for which he would be eternally grateful. Mike was imbued by his parents, Peter and Jeannette, with a love and respect for the beauty that is Colorado. Most notable were his family's annual visits to the Elkhorn Lodge in Estes Park, where he stored up memories that never ceased to bring him great joy. Over the course of his 70 years, he took every opportunity to travel throughout the State, delighting in Nature at Her finest. If Michael was born to be an attorney, even more so was he born and raised to be a Marine. When he was a toddler during World War II, his Mom would take him to watch the convoys of military trucks that travelled up and down Colorado Boulevard, just a block from his home. His Dad took him to see all forms of military displays, from the parades in downtown Denver to soldiers camped out in their tents in Civic Center to the remarkable collections of active military planes that were parked at Lowry and displayed at air shows across Colorado. Recognized later as a genius in military history, even as a child, Michael delighted in his ability to identify each tank, truck, plane, and ship in every branch of the Armed Forces. Mike's complexity is underlined by the time he spent as an altar boy at St. John's Parish (now Good Shepherd) in Denver. He often laughed uproariously about the times he and the other ""regulars"" learned their Latin responses and survived multiple incense disasters. The little ""altar"" his Mom set up for him was the nightly setting for his litany of prayers and the family rendition of ""Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue."" That sweet kid was hardened into manhood by the Jesuits of Regis High School. For four long years, he faced daily psychological and sometimes physical confrontations with memorable figures such as Fr. Krieger, Fr. Eataugh, and Fr. Bakewell. It was those four years of daily struggle to survive that were the basis of his acceptance by the University of Notre Dame, a dream that had followed his every footstep since his Dad and he made a football pilgrimage to that campus when he was merely a freshman at Regis. By the time he was settled in in South Bend, his studies had taken a backseat to his love of everything Notre Dame Football. He spent untold hours watching the team practice; and he was personally involved in intramural football, where many members of the varsity such as Angelo Daberio shared with him their football knowledge and skill. He also made good friends in intramural basketball, where he teamed up with Jack Snow to win the inter-hall championship title in Mike's senior year. His biggest thrill, however, had nothing to do with his own skills but with his room assignment in his freshman year – he actually got to live in the room formerly occupied by one of Notre Dame's most famous players, Mr. Paul Hornung himself, who came back to visit his old haunts while Mike was in that room. And in those grand times of Catholic education, Michael also found romantic love, remarkably one that brought a certain fame when Mike was crowned King of the Prom at St. Mary's down the road from ND. One more thing happened while Mike was at Notre Dame, and it turns out to have been the most important event of his life: he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. From that fateful day to the train ride that took him to Quantico and assignments at 29 Palms and San Diego, he was unwittingly preparing for his time in the Hell known as Vietnam. He took the scenic route to that strange land on a ship named the USS Simon B. Buckner; and after the voyage, the work began – work that would eventually take him to Saigon, Da Nang, Phu Bai, and Khe Sanh among other exotic locales. He would witness many of the unspeakable events of that conflict, often simultaneously handling the duties of several billets due to the horrible decimation of officers. When Mike returned home, it was with the invisible scars of war that so many young men of that era would experience. Return he did, always giving thanks to God Who indeed was the facilitator of that bit of a miracle, and immediately he set to work framing the rest of his life. He didn't feel the tug of the practice of law until first earning his teaching certificate, pursuant to which he taught in many of the roughest schools in the Denver area. Then it got down to the matter of taking a huge leap of faith and he applied to and was accepted by the George Washington Law School in Washington, D.C. While attending classes, he continued to spend his weekends and summers in the Marine Corps Reserves. These were the best years of his life, dating beautiful Southern Belles, escorting Miss Arizona in the Cherry Blossom Festival, and meeting important members of the Nixon Administration, Congress, the Marine Corps, and the Washington, D.C., legal community. But Mike was a Denver kid at heart and, once he had been awarded his Juris Doctor Degree, he returned to Denver to work in his Dad's law office. There was no indication that life from there on out would bring Mike anything but the normal lawyer's work in civil litigation; but, as often happens, life had a different plan in store. He would be enlisted by his cousin Peter McLaughlin into the Mayoral campaign of one Mr. Dale Tooley; and the rest, as they say, is history. Mr. Tooley would ask him to join his staff, and Mike went from civil litigation novice to work in the big time known as the Organized Crime Strike Force. There he was thrown into the deep end and he was more surprised than anyone that he could actually swim in his new environment. Swim he did for the rest of his career as a Deputy and then Chief Deputy D.A. He became the State's leading expert on the Death Penalty; and during his thirty years, he tried what has been described as an exceptional number of capital cases. Throughout his legal career, Michael continued to spend his weekends and summer vacations drilling with the Marines, as a result of which he received multiple commendations attributed to his exquisite understanding of military strategy, especially by encouraging and implementing plans that accelerated interaction among the armed forces. His drill weekends and summer ""vacations"" took him from Hawaii to Australia, from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., and eventually to his own command at Buckley. He retired as a Bird Colonel after decades of service, demonstrated by a home full of photos, memorabilia, and gifts recognizing his devotion to the great love of his life. One of Mike's greatest satisfactions in life was the choice by Charlie, whom Mike regarded as the son he never had, to follow Mike's example and join the Marines. Mike married twice and, though both marriages failed, his friendship with those women never failed. His second marriage brought him the delights and terrors of fatherhood in the form of two step-daughters, Angela and Sarah, whose love lasted to the last day of his life which saw him die in the arms of Angela, who gave her all to revive him when he collapsed in his favorite easy chair. That chair was the platform for the majority of his time after his injured knee made it impossible for him to play the game of golf, at which he had spent many years attempting to achieve the perfection willed on him by his Dad, himself a championship golfer. With his beloved Rocky Mountains in front of him, his Shih Tzu Major Midnight and his little white dog Mr. Tooley nearby, and his well-worn library of military books and magazines within arm's reach in every direction, his life on this earth slipped away. It is the unquestioned belief of everyone who knew Mike well that at this very moment he is in deep discussion with General Chesty Puller, Sir Winston Churchill, and General Douglas MacArthur, and that President Dwight David Eisenhower peeks in to remind Mike that once he had had the privilege of shaking Mike's hand.