Two Snoqualmie Valley brothers, Sean Wahlin, 19, and Tyler Wahlin, 18, became United States Marines after completing boot camp on Aug. 28, at Camp Pendleton in San Diego.

Forty-one years earlier, their father, Ron Wahlin, graduated from the same Marine Corps boot camp. The Fall City-resident eventually served with the 7th Marine Regiment in South Vietnam, where he was injured three times before being honorably discharged in 1970.

The Wahlin brothers are currently on leave and will return to Camp Pendleton this month to begin seven weeks of basic infantry training. Both are training to be machine gun operators. After training, they will be assigned to their units.

Going back to Camp Pendleton for his sons’ graduation brought back a flood of memories for Ron Wahlin.

“It was quiet a homecoming,” he said. “I saw my footsteps in the ground there with a lot of my friends.”

The brothers now live in Beebe, Ark., with their mother, Geraldine Rowland.