Michael Strobl

Michael R. Strobl (born c. 1966) is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer from Stafford, Virginia, and is currently Assistant Deputy Commandant for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Headquarters, United States Marine Corps.

After serving in the Gulf War in 1991, Strobl was assigned a desk-job at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia during the Iraq War.

Strobl escorted home PFC Chance Phelps, a Marine killed in the Iraq War on April 9, 2004 (Good Friday), outside Ar Ramadi, Iraq.

Strobl was working at a desk-job, but volunteered to escort PFC Phelps home.

He initially did this because the press release concerning the death of PFC Phelps had listed Clifton, Colorado as his hometown, a town near Strobl's hometown of Grand Junction.

The final destination and resting place, however, of PFC Phelps would be Dubois, Wyoming, Phelps having only lived in Clifton for his senior year of high school.

During the trip, Strobl kept a diary of the experience and his feelings.

After he concluded the mission, he wrote an essay entitled "A Marine's Journey Home" from the notes in the diary and shared it with Phelps's father John.

The essay appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on May 2, 2004 (with the approval of John Phelps), and then a longer version (of 5,375 words) appeared in the July issue of Marine Corps Gazette as "Taking Chance".

Strobl's 12-page narrative essay followed his journey with the remains of PFC Phelps from the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base to Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Billings, Riverton, and Dubois.

After retiring in 2007, Strobl accepted a position as an Operations Research Analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation) at the Pentagon.

While serving at CAPE, he was the lead analyst on military manpower and compensation issues as well as the Defense Health Program.

Strobl joined the service when he was 17 years old, as told in the movie Taking Chance (2009).

He holds a Bachelor’s of Business Administration (BBA) degree from Colorado Mesa University, a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Averett University, a Master’s of Science (MS) degree in Manpower Systems Analysis, with distinction, from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University.

Strobl's essay became the subject of an HBO film, Taking Chance, in 2009.

He helped write the screenplay, and he was portrayed in the film by Kevin Bacon.

Subsequently, he co-won the Writers Guild of America Award in Long Form Adaptation in Television at the Writers Guild of America Awards 2009 and was co-nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie, or a Dramatic Special, both with Ross Katz.

Strobl received the Vietnam Veterans of America President's Award for Excellence in the Arts at the organization's national convention in Louisville, Kentucky in August 2009.

He was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in September 2016 and served as the Deputy Director, Manpower Plans and Policy Division until assuming his current position in August 2021.