(NOTE: Flags are flying at half-staff at AU in memory and honor of Mike Spann)

11/28/01

AUBURN UNIVERSITY GRADUATE FIRST COMBAT DEATH IN AFGHANISTAN

AUBURN -- Johnny Michael Spann, a 1992 Auburn University graduate, was killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan, the first acknowledged U.S. combat death, the CIA confirmed Wednesday.

Spann was killed in the Taliban prison uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif on Sunday.

The 32-year-old Spann, whose home was in McLean, Va., earned a bachelor's of science degree in criminal justice/law enforcement at Auburn on March 20, 1992.

Tom Petee, interim chair of AU's Department of Sociology, taught Spann and remembered him as a "quiet, decent student."

"He was a good student," said Petee. "My remembrances of him fit in with a CIA-type profile. He blended in."

Petee, who taught Spann one course in criminology in which Spann earned the grade of B, said his former student "was not particuarly gregarious and didn't stand out in any particular way. He was a typical Auburn student in that respect."

Spann, a native of Winfield, Ala., was a solid A/B student in his classes for his major. University transcripts showed he took one ROTC course -- pistol marksmanship -- in 1990, but was not enrolled in AU's ROTC program.

Following graduation, he entered the Marine Corps' officer training program.

Spann, who served in the CIA's Directorate of Operations, the agency's clandestine espionage arm, was killed inside the fortress where Taliban prisoners were being held and questioned, CIA Director George Tenet said in a written statement. He was reportedly gathering intelligence from Taliban prisoners at the time of his death.

Spann, who joined the CIA in June 1999, is believed to be the first CIA officer killed in a U.S. military operation since the Vietnam War.

He is survived by his wife, Shannon Spann, his infant son, two young daughters and two sisters. He is the son of Johnny and Gail Spann of Winfield, Ala.

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nov01: AU-spann

CONTACT: Petee, 334/844-5049 (office); 334/821-8937 (home).