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My Son, My Hero

A father re-enlists in the marines and joins his son on the battlefield in Iraq.

By Gail Cameron Wescott

From Reader's Digest

"Wish You Were Here"

Kendall Phelps will never forget the morning two years ago when a picture popped up on his computer in his Silver Lake, Kansas, high school classroom. There stood Chris, his oldest son, in desert camouflage in front of a bombed-out building in Baghdad. He was holding a sign written on the back of a discarded MRE carton: "DAD, WISH YOU WERE HERE. SEMPER FI!" Kendall, a retired Marine, rushed across the street to the elementary school where his wife, Sherma, teaches fourth grade. She had already received the same photo via e-mail and, in a spasm of giddy relief, was printing out copies to post at the church and all over town. Chris had not been heard from since just after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom a month earlier. Kendall's elation that his son was all right momentarily erased his disappointment over not being in Baghdad himself. "Kendall is a Marine and a dad," explains Sherma. "He could not stand it that he was not over there with Chris, fighting side by side, protecting his son."

This past winter, against all odds, Master Gunnery Sgt. Kendall Phelps, 58, and Maj. Christopher Phelps, 35, deployed to Iraq together for a seven-month tour in the newly formed 5th Civil Affairs Group based in Fallujah. Ever since the five Sullivan brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, tragically died when their cruiser was sunk in World War II, the U.S. military has been reluctant to deploy immediate family members in the same company. No one can remember a Marine father and son serving together. The mission of the 5th Civil Affairs Group is to facilitate the reconstruction of Al Anbar province, an area riddled with suicide bombers and insurgents. Chris, a team leader, is working with the Iraqi police, firefighters and contractors on rebuilding the infrastructure. His dad will use his 30 years of teaching experience to help establish new schools. They both know it won't be easy. "It will be hot and nerve-racking and people are going to die," says Chris. "My buddies say civil affairs is the most dangerous job in the Marine Corps right now. But I also think it's going to be gratifying to get that grid system up and water pumping." He pauses; then he adds, "And I'd be less than truthful if I didn't say there's some comfort going over with your dad." Last January, yellow ribbons sprouted outside Chris and Kendall Phelps's Kansas houses -- some 70 miles apart -- after the two Phelps men loaded their gear into Chris's Oldsmobile '88 and drove across the country to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Kendall, the senior enlisted member of the 200-Marine unit, settled into the routine of predawn wake-ups, long chow lines and field-training in freezing weather as if he'd never left. Neighbors back in Silver Lake thought he was a little nuts -- father of five (three sons, two daughters) and grandfather of six -- voluntarily giving up the comforts of home. "When I asked him why," says Chris, "he said, 'I want to make a difference. I'm a Marine.' For me, there were no more questions. I understood. As a Marine, you feel your time is never over."

Silver Lake

Kendall was 18 when he joined the Corps in 1966. Born and raised in Rock Island, Illinois, he grew up in the poor section of town, where no one he knew went to college. The military was his way out of a future in a factory manufacturing tractor parts. Riding around one day with friends, he spotted a large "Join the Marines" poster and decided to talk to a recruiter. Seven months later, Kendall was sent to Vietnam. His parting with his own dad still chokes him up in the retelling. "That was the first time I ever saw my father cry," he says. Working with KC-130 aircraft in the First Marine Aircraft Wing in Vietnam, Kendall moved ammunition and supplies into and the wounded out of combat zones. "When you sweat, sleep, get scared, get mad and cry together, you find out what you're really made of," he said at a 2003 gathering of Marines. His toughest task was loading the body bags of KIAs, some of whom he knew, onto the planes. To this day, he is repelled by the smell of wintergreen, which reminds him of a substance used in disinfectant to plug wounds. "I saw a lot of death," Kendall says. "You don't ever get used to it, but you learn to cope with it." After returning to Illinois in 1968, Kendall met and married Sherma Meek, who caught his eye in a restaurant when he was out with someone else. By the time Chris was born two years later, Kendall, once a talented high school clarinet player, had enrolled in the music education program at Topeka's Washburn University, courtesy of the GI Bill. He soon joined his local Marine Reserve unit, training one weekend a month and two weeks in summer at bases across the country. "I love being around Marines," Kendall says simply. "Always have, always will." In 1977, Kendall was hired to teach music and help coach at the high school in Silver Lake, a town too tiny for a stoplight, just north of Topeka. "It was like moving to Mayberry R.F.D.," says Kendall. "People leave their doors unlocked. We love it here." Sherma took a job teaching at the elementary level, and the Phelpses settled into a brick and vinyl-sided house with a huge silver maple out front, just across the street from both schools. The arrangement allowed the two of them to walk to work and guaranteed that the home teemed with friends of their kids. "We even put a phone in the garage so boys could call their parents to pick them up after football practice," says Sherma. Chris can't remember a time when he did not want to be a Marine. "It began around age two," he says. "I wanted to be like my dad, who was the greatest dad in the world." The two were active partners in Boy Scouts; when Chris rose to Eagle Scout, he asked his father to give the speech at his Court of Honor. Kendall guided his son in track to a high jump record that stood for more than a decade until Chris's younger brother Josh broke it.

The Mission

When he was 17, Chris tried to join the Marines' delayed-entry program (a commitment to boot camp within a year), but his dad flatly refused to sign the initial parental form. "You are saying you're willing to put your life in jeopardy," Kendall explains. "You've got to do that yourself." The following April, on his 18th birthday, Chris signed the documents, and then left for San Diego and boot camp right after his high school graduation. That fall, while simultaneously serving as a private in his father's Marine Reserve unit in Topeka, Chris entered the University of Kansas. He earned a bachelor's degree in literature and a master's in administration, but yearned to become an officer. "The esprit de corps just gets in your blood," he says. "Band of brothers is such a cliché -- but that's what the Marines are." Just six weeks after his June 1994 wedding to Lisa -- a blue-eyed brunette he vowed to marry the first night they met -- Chris entered the U.S.M.C. Officer Candidates School. On the cold December day when Chris was commissioned a second lieutenant, after the parades and ceremonies, his dad waited for him on a street in Quantico. Standing at attention, Master Gunnery Sgt. Kendall Phelps proudly gave his son his first salute. Then, as Chris's wife, mom and younger siblings noisily crowded around the new officer, Kendall slipped behind a building to wipe away his tears. "Marines," he explains, "are not supposed to cry." It was even tougher to hold back on the day Chris left for his first tour in Iraq in the winter of 2003. By then, Marine rules had compelled Kendall to retire from the Corps after 30 years of service. Chris had become the commanding officer of his father's former unit, which had just been mobilized as an ammo-resupply platoon. "In combat, that can be a very dangerous place to be," says Kendall. That morning at his home near Kansas City, Chris said goodbye to his three little boys and his wife, pregnant with a fourth. His mother and father joined him for his send-off from Reserve headquarters in Topeka. Kendall, more dad than Marine this time, made no effort to conceal his emotion. The next day, he stepped up his efforts to return to active duty. Operation Iraqi Freedom unfolded in agonizingly slow motion in Silver Lake. By day, Kendall taught kids to play instruments and coached high school track. In the evenings, he retreated to his house to monitor the coalition forces charging across the Iraqi desert on CNN. Sherma, who couldn't take her eyes off the ticker listing casualties, got accustomed to finding her husband on the sofa, still staring at the television screen at three o'clock in the morning. Even after Chris returned home, his dad, suspecting his son would be sent for another tour, persisted in his efforts to be reactivated. "I know a lot of Marines," he says, "and I called all of them. And I kept calling." His determination was finally rewarded just before Christmas when he received an e-mail from the commanding officer of the 5th Civil Affairs Group. It read: "Prepare for a long stay in the desert." Chris was recruited for the same mission. Sherma could not believe it. "I just had a strong feeling it was not going to happen," she says quietly. "Then it happened. I'll be a basket case until they return." Christmas was as festive as ever. "We didn't talk about what was about to happen," recalls Sherma, "because with six grandkids running around, it's hard to talk about anything." But after the New Year celebrations, the stress escalated.

Profoundly Proud

On the January night before Kendall and Chris left home, Chris said goodbye to his family. His four sons -- Tristen, now seven, Dalton, five, Preston, three, and Taigen, 23 months -- gave him a drawing of a blue angel with a halo, saying it would protect him in Iraq. Chris folded the drawing and put it next to a Marine Corps prayer he carries in his pocket. When Tristen confessed he was scared, Chris hugged him and said, "Me too, buddy, me too." Meanwhile, in Silver Lake, the Phelps daughters and two younger sons gathered for pizza at the table where they'd shared so many meals. At 5 a.m., Sherma, Kendall and Josh, 22, drove down the empty expressway to Chris's house, where the car was already loaded for the trip to Camp Lejeune. Kendall hugged his wife, and both cried in the predawn darkness. Lisa and Chris kissed and then, pretending he'd forgotten something in the house, Chris raced back inside and left a letter he'd written on the kitchen counter. In part, it read, Boys, I want you to know that I am a Marine, and I do what I do for you. We live in the greatest country in the world, and because of that your options throughout your life will be limitless. You have those options because there are hundreds of thousands of servicemen and servicewomen willing to protect America and our way of life. I am no different than any of them. ... I am so very proud of each and every one of you. You all have special God-given talents and you are destined for great things in the future. Remember to always be honest, keep your integrity, speak your mind, and fight for what you believe. ... I love you all very much! Semper Fidelis, Dad These days, Lisa and the boys read the letter aloud often. And every night each sleeps in one of their father's Marine or KU Jayhawk T-shirts. "It makes us feel a little better," says Lisa. While profoundly proud of their men, neither Lisa nor Sherma pretends that it's easy being separated. Says Sherma, "Every time Kendall went to summer training over the years, something would happen at home -- a flat tire, a tornado, even a snake in the house. This time, sure enough, a strong wind blew the water heater pilot light out -- something that has never, ever happened before." And at Lisa's, the dishwasher broke down, Tristen had to go to the ER with a 103-degree fever, and the vacuum blew up -- all within the first three days of Chris's departure. Lisa is trying to stay strong for her little boys. With her husband and son both in Fallujah, Sherma sometimes spends sleepless nights trying to stave off worry. "Just pray that they get back here together safely," she says. "Please."

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