Duty, Honor, Family

In the winter of 1966, Kendall Phelps enlisted in the Marine Corps. As he stepped onto the tarmac, ready to head off to the Vietnam War, Phelps saw his father cry for the first time.

Nearly four decades later, the retired master gunnery sergeant felt the same anguish when his oldest son, Chris, was deployed in 2003 for the Iraq war. As he shed his own tears, the schoolteacher swore he would convince the Marine Reserves to take him back and allow him to fight by his son’s side.

“I’m a father and a Marine. I can’t separate the two,” said Phelps, 57, a clarinet player who runs the music program for Silver Lake’s schools. “I need to be there with Chris.”

On Friday, Kendall Phelps will get his wish.

Father and son have been assigned to the same unit. At the end of this week, they will leave for Camp Lejeune, N.C., to meet up and train with the 5th Civil Affairs Group. They are scheduled to arrive in Iraq in March for a seven-month tour of duty in the Al Anbar province west of Baghdad, where snipers and suicide bombers have become routine. For Chris Phelps, a major in the Marine Corps, this will be his second tour in Iraq.

When the men board the transport plane, Kendall Phelps will leave behind four other grown children, six grandchildren and Sherma, his wife of 36 years. Chris Phelps, 34, will say goodbye to his wife, Lisa, and four boys -- all under the age of 7, but old enough to be scared when told their father was returning to the Middle East.

Chris’ boys still don’t know that their grandfather also will be heading to Iraq.

“I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them,” said Lisa, 30. “We figured we’d let the first news sink in before we dropped another bomb.”

Phelps’ quest to join his son in war is an extreme example of fatherly love and patriotic pride.

National Guard officials know of only a handful of instances where parents and children are serving together. Officials with the four major branches of the armed forces say that while there are numerous examples of family members serving overseas in the same battalion, it is rare to have a father and son assigned to the same unit.

Quite simply, it’s too dangerous because of the possibility that both members of the family could be killed in one helicopter accident or a single firefight. That happened to the Sullivan family, the World War II tragedy in which five brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, died when the cruiser Juneau was sunk.

The Department of Defense allows service members from the same immediate family to request assignment to different units or ships. However, if the family members volunteer to be together, there is no policy to prevent it.

After his son’s deployment, Phelps joined a list of veterans who wanted to go to Iraq, pleaded with politicians for help and sought guidance from fellow Vietnam veterans. Friends wondered whether Phelps’ sense of duty and concern for his son had become an unhealthy obsession.

Even Chris talked to his father to be sure.

“We ask Kendall all the time, ‘Why are you doing this? You’re a husband, a father, a grandfather. You’ve served your country already. Your family and your community need you here,’ ” said next-door neighbor Jackie Shaw, 66. “Some people have gotten angry. We just cry.”

Kendall Phelps graduated from high school in Rock Island, Ill., in 1965. He and a group of friends walked into a Marine recruiter’s office the following year and enlisted.

“He asked if we wanted to leave today or tomorrow,” Phelps said. “I figured I’d better pack fast.”

After boot camp and infantry training in San Diego, he was assigned to the 1st Marine Air Wing in Vietnam. Mortars blasted around him on his first day. For 13 months, he helped run supplies and the wounded in and out of combat. Sometimes, the injured were friends. Many died in midair.

Phelps left active duty in 1968 and met and married Sherma that same year. He later joined the Marine Reserves. In 1999, after 30 years of total service, military rules required him to retire.

Chris remembers his father talking about the military, of pride and duty. But when Chris tried to join the Marine Reserves at age 17, his father refused to sign the paperwork to allow his early entry.

“He wanted me to finish high school,” said Chris, who enlisted in 1988. “The day I turned 18, I went to the Marine Reserves recruiter’s office and signed up. I didn’t tell him until after the fact.”

Chris spent four years on active duty in the 1990s, and went through officer training. He returned to the reserves in 1998, and worked as a project manager for telecommunications companies in Virginia. He later moved his family back to Kansas to be closer to his parents and siblings.

He went back to active duty after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. By early 2003, he was assigned his first tour in Iraq.

For weeks, Chris’ family waited for his e-mails; military censors would only allow vague descriptions of daily life. Then, as the Marines crossed from Kuwait into Iraq, and made their way toward Baghdad, the e-mails stopped.

“We would watch the news ticker on CNN, looking for news of Marines dying,” Sherma said. “Even after I fell asleep, Kendall would be in front of the TV, just watching and waiting.”

Once Chris arrived in Baghdad, he e-mailed his parents a photo showing him standing in front of a demolished building holding a sign made out of a torn MRE box. The sign read: “Dad, wish you were here. Semper Fi!”

It was meant to be a joke.

Back home, Phelps was trying every means possible to reenlist. Calls. E-mails. Letters.

His previous experience in the military, along with his son’s active-duty status, helped him find out about openings in particular units heading overseas -- leading him to contact acquaintances assigned to those units or the unit leaders directly.

He followed any tip, hoping for a break, family members say. But time and again, he was rejected. The reason was not age, Phelps said. Rather, the Marines told him they were looking for people with different civilian experience.

“I remember we were with the kids at Chuck E. Cheese’s, and he got a call on his cellphone,” said Sherma, who teaches fourth grade in the Silver Lake School District. “I look up, and he’s outside, talking on his phone and saying ‘Take me! Take me!’ Our daughter kept saying to him, ‘You’re too old.’ ”

Even after Chris returned, Phelps continued his quest, in part because he expected his son would be sent back overseas.

In October, Chris was helping to recruit for the 5th Civil Affairs Group, whose mission is to help Iraqis open new schools, train police, build roads and set up local governments. Reservists, drawn from a nationwide pool, dominate the 193-member unit. There are accountants and business executives, lawyers and federal prosecutors, environmentalists and firefighters.

As the war drags on, and the need for people with specific skills grows, the military has welcomed back an increasing number of older veterans. On average, the unit’s members are in their 30s, said Col. Steve McKinley, the commanding officer. Four are in their 50s.

While talking to McKinley, Chris learned that the unit needed someone with a background in education to guide efforts to build schools and playgrounds.

After 27 years in the classroom, Phelps fit the bill. He also was physically fit, thanks to regular workouts and a healthy diet.

Phelps spoke with McKinley and asked to be recruited for the position. He didn’t tell his wife.

“There was no reason to worry her until there was something real to worry about,” Phelps said.

The couple had seen the effect Iraq and other deployments had had on their son, how certain sounds jarred him. The first week Chris returned home from Baghdad, he was carrying the trash to the curb when a group of neighborhood children raced by shooting plastic guns.

“I heard that pop-pop-pop sound and I dropped to the ground,” Chris said. “The neighbors looked at me like I was insane.”

The father identified with those fears, which made him all the more determined to serve with his son: Phelps can’t bear the sharp scent of wintergreen mint because it recalls the smell of material used to plug wounds inside bodies before they were sent home from Vietnam.

In mid-November, McKinley e-mailed him: “Plan on an extended stay in the desert.”

After reading it, Phelps walked into the bedroom to get ready for work. Sherma looked at him. Somehow, she knew. Even today, she doesn’t know how.

“So, what day do you leave?” she asked.

Phelps couldn’t answer her. He didn’t know. The couple finished dressing for work, then walked to their schools, located across the street from their home.

In this northeastern Kansas town of about 1,300 people -- too small for a stoplight and trusting enough so locals can leave their keys in the ignition overnight -- the news spread quickly.

Most people are familiar with Phelps’ pride in his military service; he has a “retired Marine” sticker on his van’s bumper. He’s 6 feet 1 and is as broad-shouldered as his sons, and is known for carrying a “John Wayne” in his wallet -- the finger-length metal can opener he used to open C-rations in Vietnam.

Still, Phelps’ reenlistment puzzled friends and neighbors, who rushed to console Sherma.

They kept asking Phelps: Why? How? When? Why?

Phelps’ answer: It’s his duty, both as a Marine and as a father. He’s not giving anything more, or anything less, than any other Marine.

McKinley, who has known the Phelps family for several years, recently visited them, meeting and playing with Chris’ boys. The pressure to ensure the safety of everyone in his unit -- including this father and son -- weighs heavily on him.

“It’s on my mind constantly,” said McKinley, 53.

For Sherma, her pride in Phelps’ patriotism is often overwhelmed by her fears. She fears the violence in Iraq. She fears burying her husband and her son. She fears being alone.

One of their sons, 21-year-old Josh, recently moved back home. He will take care of Sherma and the house while attending Washburn University in Topeka, about 25 miles southeast. Neighbors have promised to visit daily.

To-do lists lie about the Phelps home: Fix the light in the bedroom. Replace the Sheetrock in the room set aside for the grandkids. Clean out the garage. But there’s not enough time to finish everything.

Gathered in Chris and Lisa’s home in Shawnee, a Kansas City, Kan., suburb, the couples decided what tasks took priority. Chris tried to soothe his mother, saying: “All Marines look out for Marines. We’re not going through anything different than any other Marine family.”

Kendall Phelps, wearing his new combat boots to stretch them out, tells her everything will be OK.

“That’s not what you said when Chris left for Iraq the first time,” Sherma said. “There’s a difference between walking out the door and being left behind. You know that. You felt that difference.”

A few hours later, Chris was busy reading e-mail updates about the deployment when his eldest son, Tristen, shuffled into the family den. The 6-year-old boy tugged on his father’s shirt, drawing him away from the computer. The father picked up his son and cuddled him in his lap.

“How do you feel about me going away?” Chris asked.

Tristen stared up and whispered, “Scared.”

The two hugged for a long time before Chris said, “Me too, man. Me too.”