By Emily Younker

eyounker@joplinglobe.com

The first story about John Cleaver that pops into his mother’s mind is one from his high school years, when he was a competitor on a Scholars Bowl team.

“I glanced to the door, and there’s him with a great big smile,” said Teresa Cleaver, waving her arms in the air to imitate her son’s happiness over winning. “He would be so thrilled and so excited.”

Her son, Staff Sgt. John James Cleaver, age 36, of the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, was killed Thursday in the Zabul province of Afghanistan.

Cleaver on Saturday said her son and other soldiers were delivering supplies to a forward operating base when a truck pulled up beside them and exploded. Cleaver and at least one other soldier were killed, and several were injured by the suicide bomber, she said.

“He gave his all,” she said of her son’s devotion to duty. “His shoes were going to be the shiniest — that kind of thing.”

Cleaver attended Eastmorland Elementary and North Middle School in Joplin, and Galena (Kan.) High School. He later attended Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Ark., where he learned to fly small aircraft, and Crowder College, where he became certified as an emergency medical technician. He also served as a volunteer firefighter at Carl Junction.

Joining the military

Cleaver joined the Navy in 1995 and was stationed on the U.S.S. Inchon at Ingleside, Texas. He served in Kosovo. He later moved to Norfolk, Va., where he was a firefighter instructor for three years.

He then transferred to Seattle, where he set up a firefighter training school and was stationed on the U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis, soon deploying to Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

After serving 10 years in the Navy, he retired as a petty officer and enlisted in the Army. Shortly after arriving at Fort Bragg, N.C., he was deployed to Afghanistan as a convoy commander and a medic.

Upon returning from that tour of duty, Cleaver completed paratrooper training and had been working to become a master jumper.

Four deployments

Cleaver was deployed to Afghanistan again in July. This would be his fourth deployment to a war zone, his mother said. The mission this time was to train Afghani police to fight against the Taliban, she said.

His service to his country, his mother said, was the second-most important thing in his life after his two sons, Collin, 12, and Aidan, 10, who live in Raleigh, N.C.

She said when her son had time to call home, he called his sons first. He asked his mother to send him some Harry Potter books during his last deployment so he could read them and talk to his sons about them, she said.

“John had a very kind heart,” she said. “Sometimes, there was a John I saw, and he was really, really sweet, and he didn’t want mom to see how sweet he was.”

At high school dances, she said her son would often dance with girls who wouldn’t have otherwise been asked. He and a friend spent one New Year’s Eve with a convenience store employee who had to work the evening shift alone, she said.

Always out to help

“He was good about (thinking), ‘What can I do for other people?’” she said. “If a friend needed something, he would do it.”

She said he asked her to send him pens to give to Afghani schoolchildren. She and her friends eventually sent him more than 400 pens and a pencil sharpener in case they got some pencils, too.

Her son, she said, thrived on learning about and experiencing different cultures. She said he seemed to grow close to those he was trying to protect.

“He didn’t like to hear people blame the Afghanis or Muslims,” she said. “It is an extremist group (that is responsible).”

Cleaver’s older cousin, Jason Schuler, of De Soto, Kan., said Cleaver was a “fun, witty guy.”

“We could go anywhere and have fun,” he said. “When he got to the Army, he seemed to be drawn more and more to the action. I think he felt like he could do more.”

Schuler said he plans to go to Dover Air Force Base at Galveston, Texas, this week to accompany his cousin’s body home. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Cleaver is set to receive a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, his mother said.