After 25 years, I returned

to Parris Island, S.C. a few years ago. I was reveling in

the homecoming, visiting the place where I became a

Marine and a man.

I traveled to the rifle

range, where I fired an M-14 rifle for the first time and

earned an expert's badge, and visited the confidence

course where I still wondered how I ever lived through

that experience. I looked for the fan-cooled barracks

(the old wooden "barns") where I lived and

trained, to discover they had been replaced by

air-conditioned brick and concrete structures.

I drove by the physical

training fields, the pugil stick grounds, the parade

deck, and other places of terror, torture and growth. I

visited the Marine Museum, after a youthful sergeant

informed me that my "era" (Vietnam) was now in

a museum, and drank deeply of the tradition, the honor,

and the history. I left the museum feeling as cocky and

bold as I did when I was 19 and a slick-sleeved private.

As I stepped out of the

museum and into the sunshine, I strolled along the

sidewalk and, in the distance, spied a contingent of men

headed my way. They seemed strangely out of place in this

domain of the strong and courageous. These men were old,

gray, and wrinkled. Some were balding, all walked slowly,

with two using canes and one managing to get along only

with the aid of a walker.

I assumed that they were

grandparents coming to watch their young Marine graduate

from boot camp (now called "Basic Warrior

Training," in the new Marine Corps), later in the

morning. Most wore glasses and all sported a yellow

baseball cap.

As they approached, I

realized how terribly wrong my assessment of these men

really was. For on each yellow baseball cap was

emblazoned these words: "Guadalcanal

Reunion-USMC." I froze in my tracks as these old men

approached, oblivious to my presence. A lump rose in my

throat as I realized that these very men ... the ones

headed my way ... were among those I had studied about in

Marine history classes.

I had watched these very

men, or men like them, in the black and white

documentaries on the History Channel. I had watched from

the advantages of time, safety and distance as the film

footage on the television told the story of the agony,

terror, fear, mutilation, death and unbridled bravery

that won the day on Guadalcanal. The old men coming my

way weren't just grandfathers passing the time.

These men, my God, were

Marines. They were the Marines that built the tradition

and heritage that makes up the mystique and grandeur of

the Marine Corps. These weren't just old Marines ... they

were Guadalcanal Marines.

I wanted to say something

to them as they passed, but the words stuck in my throat.

I wanted to thank them for their sacrifice, their

example, their courage ... but I fell silent instead. I

wanted to salute them and speak words of honor and

appreciation but, in the end, I simply stepped off the

sidewalk and let them pass undisturbed.

Heroes passed by me in

moments all too brief on that day and something

unexplainable changed in me forever. I had seen greatness

in the old men on the sidewalk. I could only walk away as

the hot tears spilled down my cheeks. I was free because

of these men and millions like them.

Last Memorial Day, I

experienced those emotions all over again, only this

time, I was staring into the faces of hundreds of quiet

heroes. The Memorial Day service in Peachtree City was

impressive and moving. A formerly active Marine (don't

ever tell a Marine that he's an ex-Marine), Randy Gaddo,

worked for months to honor America's fallen and put

together a powerful gathering. He honored me by asking me

to serve as the master of ceremonies for the event.

A genuine hero, General

Raymond Davis, USMC, former assistant commandant of the

Marine Corps and winner of the Congressional Medal of

Honor, the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star,

the Purple Heart, and dozens of other awards, spoke to

the gathering at the fountain in City Hall Plaza.

Middle school students read

touching essays, a musical group sang songs that brought

both applause and tears, the Veterans of Foreign Wars

lead prayers and placed a wreath at the foot of a

memorial, and there were speeches, drums, bagpipes, flags

and more. But that's not what moved me.

Somewhere during the

ceremony, I looked up from the podium and looked into the

faces of hundreds of heroes just like those that passed

me by on the sidewalk that day at Parris Island.

Soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guardsmen were

in abundance, most proudly sporting ball caps, or

T-shirts that identified them as veterans.

Some were World War II

veterans remembering battles and friends from long ago.

Others had seen action in the frozen hell of Korea where

they had lost comrades in pitched battles with North

Koreans and Chinese communists. A large number were

veterans of Vietnam where they fought and bled and

honorably served in a war made unwinnable by dishonorable

politicians.

Some were young, at least

to me, but stood proudly as those who had defeated the

fourth largest army in the world and liberated Kuwait in

the Gulf War. I looked up from the podium and 300 heroes,

and their families, looked back at me. Once again,

greatness stared me in the face.

At the beginning of the

ceremony, a strong wind blew in and knocked over the

American flag and the flag of the VFW. An audible gasp

escaped the throats of several near the podium as the

red, white and blue banner, pushed by the wind, hit the

ground. Two veterans of long-ago wars, leapt from the

seats, picked up the fallen flags, and, throughout the

morning, stood by the flags making sure they didn't fall

again.

That is what makes all

these men and women, of all these various conflicts,

American heroes. In their generation, when the flag

threatened to fall, they left their homes, families, and

country and did their duty. They stood by the flag and,

because of them, that flag still waves proudly over a

free people.

I still have the lump in

the throat and the tears on the cheeks ... but this time,

I just couldn't bear to remain silent.

[David Epps

is rector of Christ the King Church in Peachtree City. He

may be contacted at [email protected] or at www.ChristTheKingCEC.com ].