Three members of Fountain Hills Presbyterian Church share the experience and history of having been trained as U.S. Marines at Parris Island, S.C.

Proud of their service are George Burke of Crystal Hills Drive, Richard (Rich) Uphoff of Palomino Blvd., and his 19-year-old son, Trey, who graduated April 10 from boot camp.

An even closer bond exists between Burke and the elder Uphoff because both men were selected to guard President Dwight Eisenhower and President Ronald Reagan, respectively.

Burke served at Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains, in the mid-1950s. Uphoff was assigned to the West Wing of the White House in the early 1980s.

Representing three generations of Marines, the men connected at their church in advance of Trey’s deployment.

They recently reminisced about their Marine Corps service and Parris Island at a time when the training center celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

Thirty years separated Burke and Uphoff’s assignments at the 8th and I Marine Corps barracks in Washington, D.C., the oldest and most prestigious post in the Marine Corps.

“You were sent there with the expectation of being in special services,” said Burke.

As glamorous and prestigious assignments at the White House and Camp David are, Burke commented that “you don’t want to make them your career.”

“Two years is about all you can take with the spit and polish. You want to get out of there,” said Burke.

Marines in the highly visible positions are regularly rotated for that reason, said Uphoff.

“As great as the duty is, there is the focus on the public relations aspect …and the pomp and circumstance. It’s not like the fleet Marine force where the other 195,000 Marines in the world work. It is very much a bubble in D.C. It’s an important bubble but still a bubble.”

George Burke

He remembers standing guard while President Eisenhower practiced his golf shots at Camp David.

“Eisenhower was an avid golfer so there was a green in the front yard where he spent all of his time outdoors putting and chipping,” said Burke.

“I’ve often thought how many times I had a loaded MI not more than 20 yards from him (President),” he said.

“Eisenhower was up there frequently because he saw it as an escape from the White House,” said Burke, also an accounting instructor at the Marine Corps Institute. Banking later became his profession.

Heads of foreign countries and dignitaries frequently accompanied Eisenhower on his weekend trips to the presidential retreat. Burke recalls a visit by former Ethiopian ruler Haile Selassie before he was forced from office.

When Burke was in boot camp at Parris Island in 1954, recruits could have no communication with the outside world.

“DIs (drill instructors) would tell us daily what news they thought we needed to know,” he recalls.

An Indochina conflict involving the French and Viet Minh would eventually set the stage for the Vietnam War. Burke remembers that the U.S. government was asked to supply troops but Eisenhower and then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles jointly decided not to intercede.

“Carrier ships were in the Atlantic off South Carolina waiting for us to board in the event that a decision was made to send troops in,” recalled Burke.

Richard Uphoff

Uphoff enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school graduation in 1982 during the height of the Cold War.

Rich wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps in serving in the military. His father fought in the Army infantry during the Korean War.

During his boot camp training at Parris Island in September 1982, he said he was “tapped on the shoulder” to serve with the Marine security forces at Camp David.

”And of course, I said, ‘Sure, I’d love to.’”

He reported to Camp Lejeune for infantry training before receiving orders to report in February 1983 to the Marine Barracks 8th and I. He stood guard at the main gate to the Washington Naval Yard and later interviewed and trained troops assigned to Camp David.

Uphoff volunteered to become a guard at the West Wing of the White House. Whenever the President is present in the Oval Office, four Marines stand guards at the entrances. He served there from March 1985 until July 1986.

A highlight of his White House tour was a Washington Post Page 1 photo of Uphoff standing guard during outgoing Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin’s last visit with President Reagan.

In his one and a half years at the West Wing, Uphoff saw celebrities and rulers of foreign countries who participated in photo ops with the president.

One afternoon, actress Ann Jillian, boxer Marvin Hagler and pianist Vladimir Horowitz were photographed with Reagan.

“I got to shake the hands of the amazing Vladimir Horowitz,” he recalls

He was on duty one day when Secret Service agents chased an intruder who had jumped the front fence and ran across the lawn. Secret Service agents locked the entrance that Uphoff was guarding, leaving him outside the Oval Office.

Uphoff enrolled in the University of Illinois in Chicago after he left the Marines in 1986. He now is a senior operations manager with a large mutual fund company in Phoenix.

Trey Uphoff

“I have wanted to be a Marine ever since I was a little kid,” said the son of Richard and Shawn Uphoff.

The Fountain Hills High School 2014 graduate left April 21 for infantry training at Camp Pendleton, where he describes the assignment as “less uptight in the uniform but more uptight in the mud.”

Ultimately Trey hopes to be accepted in the Marine Corps Special Operations Command.

He will have to excel during rigorous training at jump school at Fort Benning, Ga. and Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape.

He has a sister, Emerson, 9, whose third grade class wrote to Trey when he was in boot camp.

Marine recruits living west of the Mississippi River normally receive training in San Diego, but since his father had been trained at Parris Island, Trey had the option to go there.

Strong rivalry exists between Parris Island and San Diego over which facility has tougher training. As Parris Island graduates, Burke and Uphoff naturally believe the South Carolina center is more rigid.

Environmentally, South Carolina might be tougher because of the nuisance of sand fleas and heat, said Burke. Trey agreed.

Trey didn’t find boot camp overly difficult: “You use muscles you’ve never used before. Your feet aren’t used to being in heavy boots all the time.”

Before enlisting, he and his buddies enjoyed backpacking, hiking, fishing and hunting and he thinks the strenuous outdoor activities properly conditioned him.

“Physically I was more advanced than some others in my platoon,” said Trey.

“Each step of the way you have to prove yourself,” said Trey, underscoring the Marine Corps’ advertising slogan: “The Few. The Proud. The Marines.”