Palatine Marine returns home, feted at Christian Liberty Academy

Phil and Ann Kwiatkowski got one of the best Christmas presents parents with a child in the military can receive.

Their oldest son Stephen ended his four-year hitch in the U.S. Marine Corps after two tours in Afghanistan and is back home in Palatine.

"It's the only gift any of us need," Phil Kwiatkowski said.

To celebrate the 23-year-old's return home and end of his military career, the Marine corporal's parents surprised him with a celebration at his high school alma mater, Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights.

They took him out for breakfast Friday morning under the guise of celebrating his mother Ann's birthday.

"My wife begged him to wear his uniform," Phil Kwiatkowski said.

"I had no idea," Stephen Kwiatkowski said. "I just thought she wanted to see me in my uniform. I put it on for my mom and grandma."

As they were finishing up breakfast, a group from the Warriors Watch Riders motorcycle club showed up to escort the Marine and his family to the school where an assembly was being held in his honor.

"I really didn't know what to say when I got up onstage," Stephen Kwiatkowski said. "I was really not expecting to speak."

But when he did address everyone at the school, he spent most of the time thanking his family, his military comrades and his former teachers.

Phil Kwiatkowski said he had no idea where his son got the drive to join the Marines; it just sort of happened after he graduated in 2010. He didn't know his son was even contemplating the military until he told him he was joining the Marines.

For his part, Stephen Kwiatkowski said he didn't really have any solid plans after high school, and so he started researching his military service options and checked out "all the branches."

"The Marines seemed like the best fit," he said. "I just remember as a kid when 9/11 happened and how it impacted me like everyone else. I wanted to sign up and fight in Afghanistan. I still had the emotion of wanting to do something about it."

The fastest route to combat operations in Afghanistan was an infantry assignment, so that's what he chose.

"It's quite different when you're over there," he said of the two tours he served. "I was kind of shocked that some of (the people) actually did appreciate what we were trying to do."

Back home, Phil Kwiatkowski said it was an emotional balancing act for him and his wife. While the worry about Stephen's safety and well-being was constant, they still had three younger children they had to try and reassure as well while maintaining a sense of normalcy.

"As a kid you try to protect them from everything, but when they're out there, and out there at war, you just pray that they come home," Phil Kwiatkowski said. "That's your only choice."

Stephen Kwiatkowski said the transition back home has been "a little weird." There's no one blaring "Reveille" every morning to get him out of bed. There's not a set schedule of places to go and things to do either. But most of all he misses his friends.

"It's weird being separated from them because we've been together about four years," he said. "That's the big thing. But it is kind of nice having the freedom to do whatever I want."

Next up is freshman year in college at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais.

"I'm going to study history so I can teach it in high school," he said.