When graduation day was upon him and the rest of the Exeter Senior High School class of 2011, Christopher Revell knew he was interested in enlisting in the armed services.  The only question was, which branch? And the only problem was, he didn’t have an answer.  The then-Exeter Township resident tried his hand at heavy construction, working for the first six months after graduation in Philadelphia. But when business went cold that December, Revell found himself out of a job.  “Things weren’t going too good,” he said. “And I decided to do something better.”
That decision was to join the family business: following the footsteps of his father, grandfather, aunt and uncle into the military. That “something better” was the 1.5-mile-long path he marched in last week’s Inauguration Day Parade as an airman first class in the Air Force.  “I decided to do the military,” he said. “It was the best decision I could have made with my life.”

Revell, who turned 20 Saturday, always had seemed to be following a well-worn path into the armed services. On his high school’s football and lacrosse teams, he learned to overcome adversity, to work as part of a unit toward a common goal. As a volunteer firefighter with the Lower Alsace Fire Company, he was instilled with a sense of duty, a sense that only deepened when he became an Eagle Scout in 2011.  But it wasn’t until last year that Revell finally decided the Air Force would be the best fit.  His original plan was to go into the Coast Guard. But one day, something inside Revell drove him to the Air Force website.

Between the various locations and emphasis on selflessness, he liked what he saw. And in August, he was on a plane to basic training in San Antonio, where he applied for a position in the Air Force Honor Guard. Four weeks later, he was accepted, and in October, his honor guard training began.  “It finally hit me that I was going to be in the Inauguration Parade,” he said. “It got bigger as it got closer. I was bouncing off the walls. I was ecstatic.”

On a blustery Monday, that moment finally came. Walking in a nine-by-nine-person column, he made his way along the parade route to President Barack Obama, turning eyes left and presenting arms.  “Seeing and hearing everybody out there was incredible,” he said. “To hear them yell ‘Air Force’ and chant for the Air Force made it even better. There is no feeling like there is when a million people watching you give the president the honors he deserves.”