Kevin Gonzalez was as cavalier as usual when he skimmed through the July/August edition of "Semper Fi/The Magazine of the Marine Corps League," delivered to him and his Marine Corps brothers every two months.

And then something caught his eye.

Consuming a full glossy page, blazoned with the headline "Once a Marine, Always a Marine" in heroic font, was a full-blown photo of an event he personally helped arrange at the Pappy Boyington Field airport this April.

"It was quite a surprise," the county resident said.

It was a historic moment worth capturing, Gonzalez acknowledges, when the airport was paid a visit by 10 current members of the Black Sheep squadron, the famed aviation unit that once included World War II flying ace Pappy Boyington.

Their visit was coordinated by Gonzalez and other members of the local Marine Corps League Pappy Boyington Detachment, he said, shortly before the Black Sheep servicemen's overseas deployment.

"I was quite honored," he said of seeing it recognized in the membership publication.

In the photo, members of the Pappy Boyington detachment stand with jovial expressions beside two uniformed Black Sheep fighter pilots, as well as several members of the squadron's ground crew, in front of a mammoth AV-8B Harrier.

The gathering was intended as a heritage celebration, Gonzalez said, honoring the memory of Boyington, a Medal of Honor recipient and Coeur d'Alene native for whom the airport was recently renamed.

"At its core was recognizing the historical connection between Pappy and the Black Sheep," Gonzalez said.

Many were surprised to see the photo's appearance in the national magazine, Gonzalez said.

"It does highlight that even in a small town, something as rare as a Medal of Honor can be taken very seriously," he said.

Don Glovick, a retired Marine Corps serviceman who is in the photo, said he heard from a Marine Corps pal in Florida after the magazine came out.

He isn't vain about being featured in print, he said. But Glovick lauds the Black Sheep visit as crowning the renaming of the airport, he said.

"We struggled to get the airport named Pappy Boyington Field, and all of us knew, 'If you build it, they will come,'" Glovick said with a chuckle.

He still raves about the Harrier tours given, the expertise the crew brandished.

"They're all physically fit, smart, got computer smarts," said Glovick, who retired from service in the '70s, after 22 years. "Back in our day, if we could handle a watch, it was something."

The magazine received the photo from a member of the Marine Corps League, said publication editor Bill Hudgins.

It was appealing because of its relation to the national Marine Corps League convention held this year in Boise, he said.

"It was a good tie-in to the convention," Hudgins said of why the photo was published. "And to promote the work of the detachments of the Marine Corps League up there to get the name of the airfield changed."

Airport manager Greg Delavan, himself a Navy veteran, said he hadn't heard about the featured photo.

But he supports the recognition, he said.

"It's a big deal for them, so I think that's great," he said of the Marine Corps League detachment.

Gonzalez likes the photo, he said, because it displays a rare moment of Marines coming together outside combat and detachment projects.

"It has both Marines who have retired, World War II veterans and active duty Marines," he said. "It's nice to see that bonding brotherhood between generations."