Richard Remp, who was receiving hospice care in Maryland, received his diploma Friday thanks to a whirlwind effort that involved one school superintendent driving 4.5 hours to reach him in time. He died Sunday, said James Cappuccilli, second vice commander of American Legion Post 247 in Poolesville, Maryland.

“All the dominoes lined up,” said Cappuccilli, a Marine veteran. “And if one little piece was not in place, none of this would have occurred.”

During World War II, a 17-year-old Remp joined the Marine Corps, and he would go on to serve for more than 20 years, DC News Now reported in 2021.

As a gunnery sergeant, Remp served as a door gunner in the Vietnam War, according to Cappuccilli, who pointed out that he could have avoided that dangerous work but chose it anyway.

While on a reconnaissance mission in Vietnam in December 1966, Remp helped extract nine Marines who were surrounded by Viet Cong forces, DC News Now reported. With his helicopter hovering over the pickup area for more than an hour under fire, Remp fired more than 1,000 rounds at enemy forces, enabling the Marines to be saved, according to the outlet.

Despite a lifetime of proven toughness, Remp was a gentle man, “a peach,” Cappuccilli said.

“You would have never known he was a Marine, other than we talked a lot of Marine stuff,” he said.

And Remp had a mischievous sense of humor, said Cappuccilli, who said the nonagenarian was “funny, funny, funny.”

In February, Cappuccilli, a former high school guidance counselor, had the idea of honoring Remp by securing him a high school diploma. Initially believing Remp was a graduate of Sharon High School in Sharon, Pennsylvania, Cappuccilli got in touch with school officials there, he said.

Justi Glaros, superintendent of the Sharon City School District, quickly agreed to speak with with her school board and see what she could do.

Glaros learned that Pennsylvania allowed the awarding of high school diplomas to veterans who didn’t graduate from high school because they had served in World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War. Remp had served in all three.

“From our board, it was no question, 100%, we would like to give Mr. Remp an honorary diploma,” Glaros said.

But as she dug through yearbooks, she discovered there had been a mixup: Remp actually had attended a different high school nearby. That school board got to work on securing a diploma.

On May 14, Cappuccilli learned Remp had been diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer and was in hospice care. He called Glaros to tell her Remp was very ill and to thank her for her efforts, he said.

Glaros wasn’t giving up. She reached out to the nearby school to see if it could get the diploma to Remp in the next few days, but school officials told her they couldn’t speed up the process.

So Glaros talked to her own school board president and, on Friday morning, got Remp’s diploma printed. Fearing it wouldn’t reach Remp in time if she mailed it, she decided to make the 4.5-hour drive to Maryland herself, she said.

As Glaros stepped foot out of her car, Cappuccilli recounted, he told her, “You’re going to heaven, because this act puts you there.”

For Glaros, meeting the World War II veteran was like meeting a rockstar, she said. At first, it made her nervous.

“It was just an incredible honor to be able to give that to him,” she said. “When I was speaking with him, it was like we had been best friends forever.”

Remp told the crowd of family and friends by his bed that he was “really happy,” ABC 7 reported.

“You people just don’t know what it means to me,” Remp said, according to the outlet. “I’ll cherish this for the rest of my life.”

The next day, Saturday, Remp was speaking with pride about that diploma even as he began to fade, according to Marine veteran Julien Singh, commander of American Legion Post 247.

Glaros said she was glad she had the opportunity to give back to Remp. She said she tries to instill in her students the importance of being good to others.

“For me, it was a no-brainer,” she said. “It was just an act of kindness.”

The Criminal Investigations Division of Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, arrested the pair for trespassing and notified ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO, office in Washington, office spokesperson James Covington told Marine Corps Times in a statement Thursday.

Deportation officers arrested the two people, whom Covington described as “Jordanian noncitizens.”

“Both individuals will remain in ERO custody pending removal proceedings,” Covington said.

The pair had driven up to a gate of the base in a box truck and, when questioned by military sentries, claimed to be Amazon subcontractors making a delivery to the town of Quantico, Virginia, which is accessed through the base, Marine spokesman Capt. Michael Curtis told Marine Corps Times on Tuesday.

When military police directed the two to go to a holding area to undergo standard vetting procedures, the driver instead went past that area and attempted to drive onto the base, Curtis said. The base’s law enforcement put up the vehicle denial barriers, blocking the truck from getting farther onto the base, and detained the pair.

Potomac Local News first reported the attempted breach.

The Virginia base is home to Marine Corps Combat Development Command, which is dedicated to modernizing the force, along with some of the service’s training schools and other elements. Other Defense Department components and federal law enforcement agencies also have a presence on the base.

Former Pfc. Joshua Cobb, 23, of Trenton, New Jersey, was charged via complaint with one count of transmitting a threat in interstate and foreign commerce, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey said in a news release.

Records of the alleged threats start in December 2022, when a social media user with an IP address linked to Cobb’s residence in New Jersey declared he was planning to “erase” white people in a shooting, according to the complaint.

“I want to cause mayhem on the white community,” the user wrote. “The reason i specifically want to target white people is because as a black male, they will NEVER understand my struggles.”

On another social platform, a user who went by the name “1dayUsuffer” posted in spring 2023 of his hope of becoming a serial killer.

The user made several posts expressing a desire to commit mass violence, and said the posts would serve as “evidence” and “clues” for “when im done.”

“I’d probably (overdose) on my own adrenaline after the 10th body goes down,” he wrote in one post.

In another post, the user said he had killed his cat with a crossbow.

“Very bloody scene and I loved it,” he wrote.

The user described a family history of schizophrenia but said he refused to get evaluated lest he lose his firearms license.

FBI agents later used IP addresses and other clues to link Cobb to the account, the complaint said.

In June 2023, Cobb started boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, Marine spokeswoman 2nd Lt. Giselle Cancino said in an emailed statement to Marine Corps Times on Tuesday. He became a private first class in September 2023.

He checked into Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, in February, as a rifleman with 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, according to Cancino.

FBI agents seized Cobb’s phone and interviewed him on the California base April 2, according to the complaint.

During the interview, Cobb admitted he had written the posts, and he specified the gym and grocery store he had considered as targets for an attack, the complaint said. He told the FBI agents he had access to guns through people he knew, including a relative who legally owned firearms.

When FBI agents informed him that his cellphone was being seized, Cobb became irate and said, “These are the things that make someone want to do the things we talked about,” according to the complaint.

On his phone were notes from April 2023 and May 2023 expressing his desire to kill and detailing how to bring guns into New Jersey, according to the complaint.

The Marine Corps discharged Cobb on Friday, according to Cancino, who did not specify the nature of the discharge. During his brief time in the Marine Corps, Cobb received a Certificate of Commendation but no personal awards, and he did not deploy, the spokeswoman said.

Cobb has been in federal custody since his arrest Monday, according to court records. His bail hearing is set to occur this Friday.

He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the news release.

Saverio Viggiano, a federal public defender with the District of New Jersey who is representing Cobb, said the public defender office doesn’t comment on cases.

The United States is considering deploying an elite Marine security team to Haiti because of a deteriorating security situation there, according to a defense official.

The Marines would be deployed at the request of the State Department, according to the defense official. Marine Corps Times asked the State Department for further details Thursday and didn’t receive a response.

“Deploying a FAST platoon is one option at the DoD’s disposal should the DoS request assistance with security at the U.S. Embassy in Port Au Prince,” Maj. Mason Englehart, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces South, wrote in an email to Marine Corps Times on Friday.

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry is struggling to stay in power as he tries to return home, where gang attacks have shuttered his country’s main international airport and freed more than 4,000 inmates in recent days.

Henry remained in Puerto Rico as of midday Wednesday. He landed in the U.S. territory on Tuesday after he was barred from landing in the neighboring Dominican Republic, where officials closed the airspace to flights to and from Haiti.

In 2023, more than 8,400 people in Haiti were reported killed, injured or kidnapped, more than double the number reported in 2022. The U.N. estimates that nearly half of Haiti’s 11 million people need humanitarian assistance, but the 2024 humanitarian appeal for $674 million has received just $17 million — about 2.5% of what’s needed.

On Wednesday, the U.S. embassy in Haiti urged Americans in the country to depart as soon as possible and said it would be on limited operations Thursday.

“Embassy operations may be further affected during the week because of gang-related violence and its effects on transportation and infrastructure,” the embassy said in the security alert.

The Corps’ fleet antiterrorism security teams, often known as FAST, are deployed around the world for limited periods of time to reinforce or recapture U.S. assets.

FAST Marines receive specialized training on noncombatant evacuation operations, close-quarters battle, military operations in urban terrain, convoy operations, shipboard operations and specialized security operations, according to a page on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

The teams are part of the Yorktown, Virginia-based Marine Corps Security Force Regiment.

In 2019, fleet antiterrorism security team Marines embarked a U.S. merchant vessel to provide security as it transited the Strait of Hormuz, located between Oman and Iran.

In 2010, after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, they were sent to assist the Marine security guards who already had been guarding the U.S. embassy in the capital Port-au-Prince.

At a press conference Wednesday, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, denied that the United States was considering sending U.S. forces to Haiti.

Jean-Pierre said noted that Kenya had agreed to send police officers on a security mission to Haiti.

“So, that was recently signed, and that’s going to move forward,” she said. “But there is no plan to bring U.S. forces into Haiti.”

In 2021, President Joe Biden sent Marines from the Marine Security Guard Security Augmentation Unit to the Port-Au-Prince embassy “out of an abundance of caution” following the assassination of the Haitian president but insisted sending U.S. forces to stabilize the country was “not on the agenda.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The National Association of Black Military Women and left-leaning legal organizations have weighed in on the lawsuits against the U.S. Military Academy and the Naval Academy, filing briefs in defense of the academies’ use of race as a factor in admissions decisions, often known as affirmative action.

In June, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that affirmative action in higher education violated the clause of the Constitution guaranteeing equal protection under the law. But Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a footnote that the decision didn’t apply to the military’s service academies, which presented “potentially distinct interests.”

The footnote left the door open for litigation seeking to ban affirmative action in those military institutions.

A group opposed to affirmative action has walked through that door, suing two service academies for considering race as an admissions factor, arguing the policy is unfair and illegal. The National Association of Black Military Women’s recent briefs defend the policy, making the case that racism still exists in the military and racially diverse leaders can ameliorate it.

“For people to think that there is no racism in the military, that’s a false narrative,” retired Army Col. Irma Cooper, the association’s vice president for operations, said on Friday.

In the fall, Students for Fair Admissions, the same anti-affirmative-action advocacy group that successfully challenged affirmative action in civilian universities, turned its attention to the service academies. It filed lawsuits against the Army’s U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, and the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, for what it characterized as unlawful racial discrimination.

The National Association of Black Military Women, the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund argued in a friend-of-the court brief filed Nov. 29 that affirmative action at the U.S. Military Academy, which educates future Army officers, was “critical to the success of Black women in the military and to the military’s success.”

Friend-of-the-court briefs, also known as amicus briefs, are filed by entities that aren’t directly involved in a case but share their insight or expertise.

Nearly the same set of groups, with the difference being the addition of the ACLU Foundation of Maryland and the subtraction of the New York Civil Liberties Union, on Dec. 6 filed a similar brief in the case against the Naval Academy. That academy educates future officers for the Navy and Marine Corps.

The use of race in admissions

In arguing that affirmative action is necessary, the amicus briefs point to the low number of Black and Hispanic officers relative to Black and Hispanic enlisted troops.

Black troops made up 19% of enlisted active-duty service members in 2022 but only 9% of officers, according to data from the Pentagon.

The briefs quote service members of color recounting instances of racism they say they experienced, including offensive language and apparently disparate treatment in the military justice system.

Retired Army Col. Annette Tucker Osborne, president of the National Association of Black Military Women, says in the briefs that when her new commander on a deployment to Kuwait met her for the first time, he looked at her and back at her resume, over and over and over. In Tucker Osborne’s view, the commander was “unable to equate a Black woman with the well-polished and extremely qualified person on paper.”

“I was asked three times, ‘Did you complete Army War College?” she said in a Friday interview with Military Times. “I told you the first time. You didn’t have to ask me three times in front of the whole group of military personnel.”

On that six-month deployment, young white soldiers often wouldn’t salute Tucker Osborne, a full-bird colonel, she said.

Founded in 1976, the National Association of Black Military Women is an organization “dedicated to giving voice to Black military women across the nation.”

The association’s briefs argue racially diverse leaders can foster a better culture for more junior service members of color.

The U.S. Military Academy maintained in a court filing that affirmative action, by increasing racial diversity in the officer corps, also prevents internal racial tensions, boosts recruitment and retention, and builds the military’s legitimacy in the eyes of the nation and the globe.

Students for Fair Admissions has argued the opposite: that considering race in admissions undermines the internal and external trust in the military and amounts to racial stereotyping.

“America’s enemies do not fight differently based on the race of the commanding officer opposing them, soldiers must follow orders without regard to the skin color of those giving them, and battlefield realities apply equally to all soldiers regardless of race, ethnicity, or national origin,” the group wrote in a September filing.

And because race helps some applicants, race necessarily hurts other applicants, Students for Fair Admissions argued.

“That’s illegal,” the group wrote.

The service academies’ admissions officers insisted in court filings that race isn’t the determinative factor in deciding whether to admit or deny students.

To get accepted to the academies, applicants must not only meet the academic and physical standards but also receive official nominations, often from members of Congress.

Race can help students get letters of assurance, early conditional acceptances for “outstanding” applicants, according to the admissions officers. It could play a role in the academy’s decision to provide its handful of direct nominations, though those are typically reserved for standout athletes. And it can be a “plus factor” in final admissions decisions.

Students for Fair Admissions wrote that the academies should pursue race-neutral alternatives to affirmative action. The group described affirmative action as “racial box-checking” and “racial pseudoscience” because it relies on broad racial classifications like “Hispanic” and “Asian” that encompass a huge variety of ethnic backgrounds.

Nearly 19% of the military’s active duty officers are service academy grads, but that percentage falls to approximately 13% for Black officers, according to Pentagon data from 2019. ROTC programs at civilian universities are the leading source of officers’ commissions overall.

Next steps

Students for Fair Admissions is seeking preliminary injunctions that would order the Army’s and Navy’s service academies to cease using race as a factor in admissions immediately.

For that to happen, Judge Philip Halpern in New York and Judge Richard Bennett in Maryland would have to decide that Students for Fair Admissions’ arguments should win on the merits, and that waiting for the typical legal process to run its course would create harm that couldn’t be repaired.

Students for Fair Admissions, which is representing two anonymous white high schoolers who would like to apply to West Point, has said the judges need to act now. One of those students is applying in this admissions cycle and might miss out on a spot that he would have gotten if he weren’t white, the group argued in the complaint.

“Unless West Point is ordered to stop using race as a factor in admissions, [his] race will prevent him from competing for admission on an equal footing,” Students for Fair Admissions wrote.

Lawyers for Students for Fair Admissions didn’t respond to a Military Times request for an interview.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Justice Department’s Civil Division are representing the academies. Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the New York office, declined to comment. The Civil Division didn’t respond by time of publication to a Military Times request for comment.

Whether or not the judges decide to end affirmative action in the academies immediately, it’s likely those decisions will get appealed, Sarah Hinger, an ACLU attorney who worked on the amicus briefs, told Military Times on Thursday.

The cases likely will one day end up before the Supreme Court, in Hinger’s view.

Although six of the nine Supreme Court justices voted in June to scrap affirmative action in civilian universities, the service academy cases would force them to balance a desire to enforce equal protection consistently with the norm of courts deferring to the military, Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law School professor, wrote in Bloomberg in September.

“It’s likely to be a close call, but consider: If there had been five firm votes on the court for striking down the military’s use of affirmative action, there would have been no need for Roberts to exclude the academies from June’s decision,” Feldman wrote.

The case in the Southern District of New York is Students for Fair Admissions v. United States Military Academy at West Point et al (7:23-cv-08262).

The case in the District of Maryland is Students for Fair Admissions v. The United States Naval Academy et al (1:23-cv-02699).

“You may not hear this a lot, but kids have something important to teach us grownups, especially military kids like you,” Jill Biden said. “You teach us how to be brave, even when we’re scared. You teach us how to make friends, even when we don’t know anyone. And you teach us how to reach out a hand to other people in need.”

It was the first year Biden has hosted her annual Toys for Tots event at the White House rather than at a local military base. It’s a longstanding tradition for first ladies to hold events with Toys for Tots around the holidays.

Biden, herself the daughter of a World War II Navy veteran, has made supporting military families one of her priorities as first lady.

Before her remarks, the children had the opportunity to skate on a small ice rink on the White House’s South Lawn. A few Marines clad in dress blues, with ice skates rather than corfam shoes, joined their kids.

Some kids appeared excited to meet another celebrity in attendance: Gunny Bear, the larger-than-life teddy bear Toys for Tots mascot who was generous with high-fives.

Following Biden’s speech, the children sorted presents for Toys for Tots.

Since 1947, Toys for Tots has distributed 652 million toys to 291 million children, according to its website.

Biden said the program brings “magic, wonder and joy to children in need.”

Marine Reserve Maj. Bill Hendricks came up with Toys for Tots in 1947 after his wife, Diane, told him she wanted to donate handcrafted dolls to an agency that would give them to children in need, according to the program’s website.

No such agency existed, so Hendricks and the Marines in his Reserve unit collected and distributed 5,000 toys themselves that year.

Toys for Tots became a nationwide Marine Corps Reserve project the following year.

Retired Marine Corps Col. Ted Silvester, vice president for marketing and development for Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, recently said there is much want in 2023, Marine Corps Times previously reported.

“The need is significant,” he said in a news release. “We’re getting a lot of requests to all of our chapters.”

Veteran Lance Cpl. Joel David Beal had been fighting for Ukraine with the volunteer group Chosen Company since February or March, company commander Ryan O’Leary told Marine Corps Times on Nov. 24.

While fighting in Pervomais’ke in Donetsk Oblast, Beal was hit by a mortar round after jumping out of his trench in an attempt to destroy a Russian infantry vehicle that was attacking his comrades, O’Leary said.

“He was just fearless,” O’Leary said.

In response to a Marine Corps Times query about whether Beal had been killed in Ukraine, a State Department spokesperson on Nov. 22 confirmed the death of a U.S. citizen in Ukraine on Oct. 12 but declined to provide more details, out of respect for the family’s privacy.

Beal served in the Marine Corps from 2006–2010, leaving as a lance corporal, according to information provided by Corps spokeswoman Yvonne Carlock.

A rifleman, he deployed to Iraq from June 2008 to October 2008. His awards included the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon (twice), Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and National Defense Service Medal.

His final duty assignment was 1st Intelligence Battalion at Camp Pendleton, California.

Beal’s death was first reported by Task & Purpose. Marine Corps Times could not get in touch with Beal’s family.

In Chosen Company, Beal’s callsign was Gander, though O’Leary said he doesn’t know the origin of the name. Beal was close with fellow Marine veteran Lance Lawrence, who was killed in July, according to O’Leary.

Beal volunteered for every mission, O’Leary said. On one mission, when Beal was the driver of his team’s Humvee, he noticed one of his teammates had dropped a 40 mm grenade launcher near the Russian position.

Beal dismounted the Humvee and circled to the other side of it while shooting at the Russian position, according to O’Leary. The Marine veteran picked up the grenade launcher and lobbed rounds at the Russian fighters as he returned to the driver’s side, “and then just drove off like it was nothing,” O’Leary said.

“He had conviction in what he was doing, and he lived through that conviction,” O’Leary said.

Beal is at least the seventh U.S. Marine veteran killed in the war in Ukraine.

Other Marine veterans known to have died in the war are Lawrence; Ian Frank Tortorici, 32, killed in June; Cooper “Harris” Andrews, 26, killed in April; Pete Reed, 33, killed in February; and Grady Kurpasi, 50, and Willy Joseph Cancel, 22, each killed in April 2022.

Born in Naval Hospital Twentynine Palms, California, he was about 5 years old when he decided he would pursue the Marine Corps, the 17-year-old told Marine Corps Times on Tuesday. He wanted to be like his dad, now-retired Staff Sgt. Daniel Lowe, 47.

In his first few years of high school in Flowery Branch, Georgia, Jack Lowe was a standout swimmer who cracked up his teachers and coaches and always got good grades, according to his father.

In March 2022, as a high school junior, Jack Lowe was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, according to a Marine Corps news story. He received 36 proton radiation treatments while completing in-patient chemotherapy.

Six months later, having been deemed cancer-free, he left the hospital.

He still was determined to become a Marine, Arin Davis, Daniel Lowe’s wife, who has raised Jack Lowe since he was young, told Marine Corps Times.

But in August, doctors discovered the cancer had returned and spread to his upper body, according to the Marine Corps story. He went through six weeks of experimental chemotherapy, but the cancer aggressively grew and spread through his body.

His doctors found his cancer was resistant to chemotherapy and declared his illness to be terminal, affording him only a “short window of life,” according to the Marine Corps story. Tired of being “poked and prodded,” Jack Lowe asked his family to stop treatment.

“We’re hoping that there’s still a miracle waiting for us,” Davis said.

The family didn’t know honorary Marines even existed until speaking with their Marine veteran neighbor, who mentioned he was working with a local recruiter to try to get the title for Jack Lowe, according to Daniel Lowe.

The honorary Marine program, which recognizes civilians with extraordinary contributions and ties to the Marine Corps, started in 1992.

It’s a rare honor, requiring approval from the commandant of the Marine Corps. As of July, there hadn’t even been 75 honorary Marines in the program’s history.

Daniel Lowe said he brought up the possibility of the title to his son’s godmother, who works with the Wounded Warrior Project. She got to work.

So did the Marine Corps.

Less than a week later, Brig. Gen. Walker Field, the commanding general of Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, came to the family’s home to designate Jack Lowe an honorary Marine.

Daniel Lowe said the Marine Corps told him Commandant Gen. Eric Smith had wanted to attend himself, but Smith went into cardiac arrest Oct. 29 and has since been recovering in a Washington hospital.

“Our greatest weapon is the fighting spirit found in each and every Marine,” Field said at the Nov. 1 ceremony, according to the Marine news story. “Throughout this very challenging time, Jack has displayed a tenacious fight underpinned by steady resolve and a wry, witty sense of humor. Henceforth, we as Marines embrace him as one of our own.”

Although Jack Lowe was in pain, “shaking like a leaf on a tree,” he remained standing during the ceremony, even raising his right hand from his walker to recite his oath, according to his father.

Field instructed Daniel Lowe to take the eagle, globe and anchor pin from the general’s own uniform and drop it into Jack Lowe’s palm.

The father’s hand shook, and the son’s hand shook. Father welcomed son into the Marine Corps.

“It was just a breathtaking moment between father and son, Marine and Marine,” Daniel Lowe said.

For Jack Lowe, the extent of the ceremony came as a surprise. He had assumed the honorary Marine title was just that: a title, mostly awarded to little kids.

“To actually know that I’m a part of the Marine Corps, it’s just wonderful,” he said.

On Thursday, Task & Purpose posted a video about Jack Lowe to social media. Commenters soon suggested he attend a Marine Corps birthday ball, an annual November tradition.

“Almost immediately it became obvious that the biggest problem wouldn’t be finding a ball for Jack to attend, but picking which one,” wrote Kyle Gunn, a Marine veteran and Task & Purpose social media editor.

Jack Lowe ended up attending the one thrown by Marine Forces Reserve’s Combat Logistics Regiment 45 on Saturday in nearby Atlanta. Marines even secured him a set of dress blues.

At the ball, Col. Kurt Boyd called Jack Lowe’s name and asked him to wave, and the Marines stood and clapped for him. The honorary Marine gave them what he described as “a parade wave.”

Then the Marines started cheering for him: “Semper Fi. Happy birthday, Devil Dog. Ooh-rah.”

“You know how us Marines get real loud?” Daniel Lowe said. “The room literally echoed and shook a little bit.”

He and Davis broke down crying.

Sgt. Maj. John Miller, the guest speaker at the ball, told the crowd about his own eagle, globe and anchor insignia, Daniel Lowe recalled. At the end of the speech, the sergeant major handed Jack Lowe that eagle, globe and anchor.

Miller looked the teenager right in the eye, Daniel Lowe recalled, and said, You’re right where you need to be. Among your fellow Marines.

Afterward, so many Marines and sailors came up to Jack Lowe to wish him a happy Marine Corps birthday and thank him for coming that it became overwhelming for the honorary Marine, Daniel Lowe said. They had accepted him as one of their kind.

“I had a blast,” Jack Lowe said.

“They don’t define the military,” the retired Marine Corps four-star general said during a Nov. 3 panel discussion on the military’s role in democracy.

“It’s defined by the people … who go off and maintain their honor, actually sharpened in their appreciation of just how great this [democratic] experiment is, and what they saw their fellows do alongside them in terms of sacrifice to keep this experiment alive,” Mattis said at an annual conference hosted by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.

Of the more than 1,000 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack as of this summer, about 18% have military backgrounds, according to data from the University of Maryland and the Justice Department. In comparison, about 7% of all American adults are veterans, U.S. Census Bureau data from 2018 shows.

“It’s a concern, certainly,” Mattis said.

But Mattis pointed out that, much like the U.S. military, the rioters were primarily men. Some of them had been out of the military for decades.

“When someone gets out of the military — and many get out at age 22, after a full tour and an honorable discharge — if at age 45 they were part of a group that marched on Washington, D.C., maybe a few other things happened between 22 and 45,” Mattis said.

Only a handful of those involved in the attack on the Capitol were still on active duty or reservists, Mattis noted.

“They will be dealt with,” he said. “The military knows how to address people who disappoint ’em.”

Mattis’ sharp words for those who attempted to disrupt the peaceful transition of power from President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden are yet another public signal of an icy relationship between Mattis and Trump.

Mattis served as Trump’s defense secretary but resigned in December 2018 over his disagreement with the president’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. In June 2020, he condemned his former boss, writing, “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”

In response, Trump called Mattis “the world’s most overrated general.”

Also on Friday’s panel were retired Marine Gens. Joseph Dunford, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2015 to 2019, and John Kelly, who served as one of Trump’s chiefs of staff.

Dunford said back in 2019 he will never opine on Trump, a commitment he reiterated Friday. But he agreed with Mattis that the veterans who participated in the attack on the Capitol weren’t representative of veterans as a whole.

“There are thousands and thousands and thousands of veterans that are out there every day making contributions to the community and doing exactly what a good citizen ought to do,” Dunford said.

Here at the historic home of the nation’s first president, the three retired generals continually brought up the example George Washington set as a general and as a president caring for a fledgling democracy. In what was perhaps an implicit dig at Trump, Kelly said “the greatest thing” Washington did was “he went home twice,” relinquishing control of the military in 1783 and declining to seek a third presidential term in 1796.

Mattis, who reportedly owned some 7,000 books before he retired from the military, made a reference to another general who looms large in U.S. military history: then-Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. The retired Marine loosely quoted Sherman’s remarks from May 1865, when he finally sent his men home: “As in war you have been good soldiers, so in peace you will be good citizens.”

“Now, that’s not always the case,” Mattis said. “There’s always someone that disappoints you. I’m reminded that Jesus of Nazareth had one out of 12 disappoint him.”

Gen. Eric Smith, 58, was hospitalized after experiencing a “medical emergency” Sunday evening, leaving Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl performing the duties of Marine commandant, the Corps said Monday afternoon.

Marine spokesman Maj. Jim Stenger declined to answer questions from Marine Corps Times about Smith’s condition or the nature of the medical emergency, citing “the family’s wishes to remain private.”

The U.S. Naval Institute and The New York Times reported Monday that Smith was hospitalized for a heart attack, citing confirmation from unnamed defense officials.

The Times reported that Smith collapsed while running near his residence at Marine Barracks Washington.

Noah Gray, a spokesman for D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, said in a statement Tuesday that emergency service personnel “responded to a cardiac arrest” near an intersection a block away from Smith’s residence at Marine Barracks Washington on Sunday at 4:58 p.m.

In a sudden cardiac arrest, which can occur after a heart attack, the heart malfunctions and stops beating, according to the American Heart Association.

Gray said his department doesn’t identify its patients.

“Bystanders called 911 and began CPR after witnessing an adult male collapse on the sidewalk while running” in the area of 7th Street and G Street Southeast, Gray said.

Gray said that EMTs and paramedics performed CPR on the man and took him to a nearby hospital.

A spokeswoman for Marine Barracks Washington referred Marine Corps Times to Stenger.

Earlier in the day of his medical emergency, Smith was supporting runners at the Marine Corps Marathon in Arlington, Virginia. The weather was so warm and muggy that marathon organizers closed the race early.

Heckl said in a statement Tuesday his thoughts and prayers were with Smith and his family.

“In typical Marine fashion, I am the next Marine up,” Heckl said. “This is what we do, as so many have done before us throughout the history of our Corps. We must continue the march forward on behalf of our fellow Marines and Nation, regardless of the situation or the uncertainty that we may face.”

Vacancies at Marine Corps headquarters

In July, Smith, then the assistant commandant, became the acting commandant following the legally required departure of his predecessor, now-retired Gen. David Berger.

He was the White House’s pick to become the next commandant, but his confirmation was held up in the Senate by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama.

Tuberville has placed a hold on confirming 378 senior military nominees through the typical process of providing unanimous consent, in protest of a Pentagon policy of providing time off and travel reimbursements for troops who seek abortions out of state.

The Senate in September confirmed three top nominees, including Smith, by voting on them individually.

While Smith simultaneously was the acting commandant and the assistant commandant, he told reporters that he was maintaining a schedule that was “not sustainable” and sleeping approximately five hours a night.

The Senate hasn’t confirmed the nominee for assistant commandant, Lt. Gen. Christopher Mahoney, meaning Smith essentially still was holding down the top two jobs in the Marine Corps.

“The workload remains the same,” Smith said Friday at the Military Reporters & Editors conference in Washington. “There’s still the two full-time jobs filled by one person.”

Heckl, the three-star general who stepped into Smith’s role Sunday, also is the deputy commandant for combat development and integration, overseeing the Marine Corps’ modernization initiative.

Steven Stafford, a Tuberville spokesman, told Marine Corps Times Tuesday that the senator is leading an effort to force an individual vote, likely on Thursday, on Mahoney’s confirmation.

By law, when there is a vacancy in the offices of both the commandant and the assistant commandant, the most senior officer in Marine Corps headquarters performs the duties of commandant until the official commandant returns or the Senate confirms a replacement.

The Marine Corps said Heckl took over because he was the most senior officer at Marine Corps headquarters.

Several senators and congressional representatives issued statements wishing Smith a speedy recovery, with some Democrats criticizing Tuberville for his refusal to confirm nominees through the unanimous consent process.

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, said Tuesday on X, formerly known as Twitter, “Gen. Smith has been working 18+ hour days without a confirmed Deputy, another consequence of @SenTuberville’s military holds. When our top military leaders are impacted, so is our national security.”

Stafford, the Tuberville spokesman, told Marine Corps Times on Tuesday, using a nickname for the former college football coach, “Coach is praying for a swift recovery, and he is confident in the abilities of General Heckl to get the job done.”

Well-wishes also came from the top enlisted Marine leader, Sgt. Maj. Carlos Ruiz, who said Monday in a video message to Marines, “I want to assure you that the Corps’ leadership is in good hands.”

Ruiz said Smith “experienced a medical emergency and is currently receiving care at a local hospital” but didn’t provide further details.

“I know that all Marines will join me in wishing Gen. Smith a swift recovery so he can return to duty,” Ruiz said. “I also know that Marines across our Corps are professional warfighters, who will remain focused on the important work each of you are doing every day.”

Heckl noted in his statement that all orders remained in effect, adding, “Stay the course!”