There are many men and women who served their country honorably and heroically who later lived and died without seeing their stories come to light so they could be duly honored in their own time. Sometimes, we're able to peer into that sacred fraternity though the bits and pieces we assemble from the lives of their comrades. It's in honoring them that we're able to witness the importance of honoring them all, even if belatedly so. One of those heroes was my father-in-law, the late Colonel Simon J. Kittler. Si grew up in a troubled household in Michigan, but he was still able to secure a Congressional appointment to the United States Naval Academy in 1949 as a member of the Class of 1953. He was one of four brothers who received congressional appointments to the Naval Academy. After he was commissioned as a second lieutenant on June 5, 1953, he fulfilled a dream inspired by his childhood employer and mentor to lead a platoon of Marines in Korea. Once he returned to the Unit