As in Michael J. Crescenz, a 19-year-old from the West Oak Lane neighborhood and St. Athanasius parish who was killed in action in Vietnam, and whose valor earned him the Medal of Honor.

There was a brief ceremony Friday afternoon at his grave site as the family prepared to have him moved to Arlington National Cemetery.

A priest and students from his alma mater, Cardinal Dougherty High School, paid tribute. As did the Vietnam Veterans of Americal, Chapter 590, who set up an honor guard and "field cross" - M16 in the ground, bayonet first, helmet on top, boots in front and dog tags hanging from the trigger guard.

The Patriot Guard Riders organized a flag perimeter and the police escort to a Downingtown funeral home, where Michael's body awaits transfer to Arlington. That final trip to Virginia, courtesy of the Vietnam Vets Motorcycle Club and several police departments, happens Monday. The public is invited to the 1 p.m. burial.

So, yes, it was truly Michael's day, but sharing it were his five brothers and vets such as Bill Stafford, who is alive today because of Michael.

Charlie, a Marine, was the first of the Crescenz brothers to serve during Vietnam. When he came home, Michael went.

Joe Crescenz was 12 when Michael left for the Army. Joe remembers a lot of guys from the neighborhood going into the service then. Guys he and his friends always looked up to. Guys who played stickball in the streets and took the younger kids bowling.

But when those guys started coming home, Joe saw a change.

"We used to look at those guys and we thought they were invincible," Crescenz says. "Then we saw them coming back from the war . . . and they had this blank stare about them."

Joe answered the door when the Army came to the family's Thouron Avenue home in late 1968. It was a Saturday morning, maybe 7:30. Dad was upstairs shaving, Mom in the kitchen making breakfast. The youngest brothers, Steve and Chris, were still in bed.

Before the officer in dress greens came in, Joe's father yelled downstairs, "Who's knocking at this time of the morning?"

"Dad, it's a man from the Army," Joe hollered back.

At that moment, Joe heard frying pans hit the kitchen floor.

"That sticks with you," Joe says, adding that his mother was never the same after that day.

Two years later, Charlie and Mary Ann Crescenz were in the White House, accepting a posthumous Medal of Honor for their son Michael from President Richard Nixon.

When his platoon was ambushed on Nov. 20, 1968, in Vietnam's Hiep Duc Valley, Michael grabbed an M-60 and single-handedly charged three enemy machine-gun positions, killing the crews.

"He definitely stood up that day and broke the logjam we were in," says Stafford, a medic with Michael's platoon in the 196th Infantry Brigade, Americal Division. "I was able to get to one wounded guy because of Michael."

While Michael drew the enemy's fire, Stafford advanced to help a wounded soldier who couldn't pull himself to safety. As Stafford tended to the man's injuries, Michael put himself between the medic and the enemy. That's when Michael was killed.

"Things happen so quickly in a war, and you wonder why certain things happen to some but not others," Stafford says. "I figured out after many years that it just wasn't my time.

"But Michael's day was that day - to help his comrades - and that was it."

After his two tours in Vietnam, Stafford often thought about Michael, about what had happened, but he never discussed it. He even considered reaching out to the Crescenz family, but didn't.

"Twice I was going to go to Philly to meet his parents but I couldn't do it," Stafford says.

He only learned about Michael's Medal of Honor six years ago. Then last year he posted a thank-you on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial's online "wall." One of the Crescenz brothers contacted him, and Stafford heard about the Arlington plans.

Stafford was one of the pallbearers Friday at Holy Sepulchre. And though it won't be easy, he'll be at Arlington on Monday.

"I'm sure it'll be emotional but it'll be good emotion," he says. "It shows that people care, and whatever your political persuasion, you still have to honor the person."

Honor him they will. And though Joe Crescenz is frustrated about the two years it took to move his brother, the timing was perfect. Any sooner and Stafford might not have been involved.

And Friday was the feast day of the family's old parish saint, Athanasius, a defender of the faith of whom it has been said, "His courage was of the sort that never falters."

Truly Michael's day.