Miles Edward Holt’s siblings and daughter sadly discovered on Valentine’s Day 2025, that our “Wildman” had finally left the party at age 68, not being able to cheat Death yet again. His ailing mortal coil was abandoned in St. Petersburg, Florida where he had resided for many years. Cause of death is currently unknown. Miles – who had gleefully courted and eluded the Grim Reaper for decades – was an artist, an adventurer, a man who lived life to the fullest, often on the edge, and he was, as he would no doubt proudly claim, difficult – though he would have used a much more colorful term.

Born in Seoul, Korea, on July 11, 1956, 3-year-old Ok Chool Kim flew into a new life in Japan, cradled in the loving arms of adoptive parents -USAF Capt. Robert “Terry” Holt and wife Jean Rogers Holt, their new son rechristened Miles Edward. The military transport touched down hours ahead of the most devastating Typhoon in modern Japanese history. September 1959’s CAT 5 Typhoon Vera hit Honshu with giant “harbor waves” killing thousands. After the storm passed, Miles was instantly enveloped into a family which suddenly had 5 people, including weeks old screaming baby brother “Jack,” and bossy big sister “Ginji,” just 5 months older and a head and shoulders taller. Miles quickly learned English and was an always-hungry, bright, attractive, and personable boy though smaller than his American peers due to wartime food deprivation.

A talented athlete and artist from childhood, Miles enjoyed the globe-trotting Military Brat lifestyle, growing up in Japan, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, then Italy before his parents permanently settled in his mother’s hometown of Norristown, Pennsylvania which he cheerfully christened, “The Armpit of the Universe.” Active in Scouting, his Panther Patrol Troop 520 won multiple Jamboree awards under his
leadership one summer. In High School, Miles served in student government, Track and Field, Wrestling, more. He was a star in Soccer, playing the sport both in High School where he was first team All- Suburban One League and during his 2 years while studying Art at Kutztown State College. At the end of his sophomore year there, Miles skipped all his final exams, preferring to head to his true love, the beach. He then worked a variety of jobs, including as a mechanic in the family’s Mobile Lifts business before enlisting in the USAF for a brief hitch. By age 27, he had managed to wind up in Hawaii where he quickly swept 20 year old future wife Donna Tiedt – a US Naval dependent – off her feet, moving them into an employer’s rent-free luxurious penthouse apartment, living what he later called “the Miami Vice lifestyle.” Their daughter and only child, Nicole Holt Kopp, was born in North Carolina where the couple soon divorced.

For decades, Miles blew in and out of his family’s lives with absolutely no notice, telling hair-raising tales of living life with gusto. He loved to be the center of a crowd, quickly capturing attention, buying everyone drinks or a really nice steak dinner, regaling anyone who would listen on just how he had survived yet another event that would have killed an ordinary man. He spoke of all he had seen and experienced – massive Atlantic storms in the Outer Banks and worse storms in the Pacific where he was thrown off a “Deadliest Catch” Alaskan Fishing vessel. Twice. He always added that most people die the first time.

From Commercial Fishing, Miles moved into the equally dangerous profession of Hyperbaric Welding, using his impressive scuba and welding skills around the globe, often working out of Norfolk, Virginia on massive military vessels for Walashek Industrial and Marine. After a major workplace fall and a serious welding burn, followed by multiple job changes as his health deteriorated, he finally went on Disability,
taking early retirement in St. Petersburg, Florida. He often was incommunicado for months, causing great anxiety to family who kept expecting the inevitable. Which made him laugh as he knew he was invincible. Like Superman.

In his last decade of life, Miles went through fewer and fewer cars until he lost his car or his license or both. He was given cell phones, which he promptly lost. At times he lived rent-free, courtesy of the State of Florida, for increasingly petty offenses. He had made himself least 18 Facebook Profiles when it became painfully clear that he had lost his memory. Refusing to sign necessary legal paperwork which would have gotten him help, he preferred to live life without carefully planning for a tomorrow which might never come. Like Frank Sinatra, his theme song was doing life “My Way.”

Miles was predeceased by his adoptive parents with Lt. Col. Robert “Terry” Holt passing in 2007 instead of going to the beach as planned. “Jean” passed in 2021 after Covid stopped her goal to reach 100 this June. His daughter Nicole Holt Kopp, husband Chris, son Dylan, and daughter Violet of Farquhar Varina, North Carolina, survive along with Miles’s ex-wife, now Donna Tiedt O’Neal. His sister, Virginia Holt with husband Ian Parberry, and their children of Corinth, Texas survive, along with his brother Robert “Jack” Holt and wife Janet Ebert, of Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania.

Within 24 hours of his daughter Nicole receiving her DNA test results, we quickly learned the story of Miles’s origin. He was not quite a war child. But he was definitely a child OF war. The US 8th Army’s massive presence in Seoul, Korea contributed to the short term relationship between a married but lonely 35 year old US Army Medic (and former WW2 paratrooper) and an 18 year old 8th Army Korean nurse. The not quite star crossed lovers met at the wrong time and were quickly torn apart.

Miles is predeceased by his biological father – Cyril J. Gavornik – born in Pennsylvania, then of St. Petersburg, Florida where he died in 2000 at age 80, 2 decades before Miles knew of his existence. In Miles’s last years, after yet another often painful visit to the VA hospital, he would often visit the nearby military cemetery and quietly sit by “Cyril’s” grave. His biological mother “Sue” – who he met once after his daughter’s DNA search – lives in Rhode Island. Several half siblings from both biological parents survive.

Miles left no will, no final instructions, no possessions he could not carry in his pockets. Nicole hopes to eventually give most of Miles’s ashes a rest in a nearby Veterans’ Cemetery as befitting one who was born thanks to the 8th Army, and who, like his adoptive father, served in the USAF. But this will happen only after a few more family trips to his beloved Outer Banks, where as storm winds bear his rebellious spirit up to Valhalla, Led Zeppelin’s 1970 Rock classic “Immigrant Song,” blares the words, –

“On we sweep with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shore!”