A Hero’s Welcome for Sayville Marine

As US Airways Flight 3831 touched down at MacArthur Airport Friday morning, passenger Christopher (CJ) Morrissey had one thought as he noticed the hazmat trucks turn their lights on and go out onto the runway.  

“I was thinking, man, my plane is going to burn up,” Morrissey said with a laugh.

The 2006 graduate could, of course, laugh about it later because there was nothing wrong with the plane.

“The pilots didn’t know what was going on either until finally they radioed over the intercom, ‘We were wondering why the hazmat vehicles are out here, but turns out we have a veteran onboard,’” Morrissey recalled. 

“Everyone on the plane was looking around and I was like, man, I knew my mom did something,” said Morrissey, who would soon enter the airport terminal to a rousing welcome home after serving a five-year stint in the Marines, including tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a recent humanitarian mission in tsunami-ravaged Japan. 

Morrissey had been back home to Sayville several times on leave from the military, but Friday was his first time flying into the Islip airport, which spurred town officials into action to organize a “Hometown Hero” Welcome, a program spearheaded in 2009 by Islip Deputy Supervisor , a decorated Vietnam-era Marine.

“Once I came around the corner, I saw all the cameras and all the people, it just blew my mind,” said Morrissey, a lance corporal who joined the service soon after graduating from high school. “I was in a trance. I never thought anything like that would ever happen.”

Nearly 70 people lined the terminal, many waving American flags, as Morrissey made his grand entrance. 

Sayville resident Rosann Kleppan brought her two sons, Luke and Thomas, to the airport to welcome home the 22-year-old, whose journey home from Japan began last week, including a five-day stop in California, and culminated with a short-hop flight from Philadelphia Friday. 

“I think it’s important for the boys to see that there are people giving up their lives to serve so that we all have freedom in our lives,” Kleppan said.

Luke Kleppan, 12, said he wanted to be there because it was the right thing to do. 

“We would want all of the people to be here if we were coming home from serving,” said Luke, an incoming seventh grader at .

Morrissey’s mother, Zee Morrissey, who raised CJ and his younger sister Kacey alone after her husband, John, a Navy veteran, died in 1990, said she was happy that her son had made it home safe. 

“I never really worried, I just kept the faith,” she said when asked of her feelings while her son was in combat zones. 

That’s not to say CJ Morrissey didn’t have a few close calls, especially during his time in Afghanistan. Morrissey served as a lead vehicle commander during convoy runs in Afghanistan last year. 

How dangerous is that job?

“They wanted the least amount of guys in there because normally they would get blown up first,” Morrissey explained of the lead vehicle, which he rode in with just a driver and a gunner. 

Six months into his Afghanistan tour, while on a mission to tow a vehicle that had been hit by a bomb, Morrissey’s own Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle ran over an improvised explosive device.

“It’s like getting into a car accident, except the other car is a bomb,” recalled Morrissey, who suffered temporary hearing loss in the blast, but was otherwise relatively unharmed. 

Now that he’s home for good, Morrissey is ready to embark on the next chapter of his life.

“He’s not going to knit for a living,” joked his godmother, Pamela Raymond, owner of the . 

In fact, Morrissey plans to head to college, taking advantage of free tuition under the GI Bill, and then his sights are set on becoming a cop. His father served in the New York City Police Department.

“My mom would show me books when I was a kid and I would just draw police guys,” Morrissey said. “I guess I’ve wanted to do it for a very long time.”

After the airport welcome, Morrissey and his family headed to the Sayville American Legion Post for a celebration with fellow veterans.

“We landed at midnight and there was no welcoming and we swore that would never happen again,” said Gary Vertichio, a Vietnam veteran and commander of the post, explaining why so many American Legion members were at the airport. 

Morrissey told Patch that he joined the Marines because he “was lucky enough to be born on Long Island, New York.”

“I should do my part,” the unfailingly polite Morrissey said. “I was born in a great area. I’ve got a great town. I think I should do something to earn that luck.”

We are the lucky ones to have him home.