While a senior at Northgate High School in 2002, Clayton’s Karie Mason decided that college wasn’t for her. She believed she could use her musical talent playing the flute as an entrée to the U.S. Marine Corps.

On Jan. 5, she returned to her hometown after four years active duty and four years in the Marine Reserves.

This wasn’t your ordinary homecoming to visit her family home in downtown Clayton. Her proud parents Franklin and Christina Mason and siblings Annie, Frankie and Paul were there, of course, but so were about 100 others. The Lafayette Flag Brigade hastily organized a surprise for Clayton’s returning vet that included a Warrior Watch Riders motorcycle escort, a majority of the Clayton City Council, the police chief, members of Blue Star Moms and the Veterans of Foreign Wars and more family, friends and local residents.

Husband Peter Stephens, a Marine Corps drill instructor, and their two sons, Michael and Mason, were there too. It all took Karie by surprise.

A giant American flag added to the festive, patriotic mood that warmed the hearts of all in attendance despite the cold temperatures outside. Many carried their own flags to honor Karie and Peter for their service.

Clayton’s Ed and Cecelia Hartley lost their son-in-law, Ben Tollefson, in Iraq almost a year earlier, but they were on hand for this more joyful occasion.

Middle school beginnings.

You might say this journey began when Karie was at Ygnacio Valley Christian School and the band director, the late Dan Vigus, got the sixth-grader interested in the flute. “I liked how it sounded,” she recalls.

She chose to go to Northgate High because of its drama department. Before her freshman year, she went to the Northgate marching band camp and met Mahsa Meemari.

“I’ll never forget the first time I saw Karie. She had long blonde hair, blue eyes and was wearing a dress. Who wears a dress to school?” Mahsa asks with a smile. “We both played the flute and immediately became friends.”

When they were seniors, Karie and Mahsa were in a music class at Northgate when a recruiter came to talk about the Marine Corps Band. Karie was intrigued and eventually signed up to be a reservist. She auditioned for the USMC Band and was accepted, which necessitated her switching to active duty status.

Her boot camp was in Parris Island, S.C., followed by the two-week Marine combat training camp at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Meeting Mr. Right.

From there she was off to Norfolk, Va., for the six-month Navy School of Music. The day she arrived along with others from the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, there was a young Marine on hand to carry her bags up to her room. He was a trumpet player named Peter Stephens who had been at the school for three months. “We talked to each other at breakfast a few days later and we got to be good friends. Within a couple months, we were dating and even talking about marriage,” she says. “I wanted to be smart about it and said we needed to wait two years.”

Since Peter was halfway through his six months at the school, the young couple faced a rather quick separation as he was slated to be deployed to Okinawa, Japan. While Peter waited for his immunizations and paperwork to be completed, time slipped by and soon Karie was also done with her six months.

“A fantastic platoon sergeant bent over backward to send us to the same place,” she says.

The two teenage Marines were both sent to Twentynine Palms in California, where they would spend the next three years. As members of the Marine Corps Band, they performed all over the western United States. Peter remembers the time they were called at 4 a.m. to get ready to travel to Simi Valley to perform at former President Ronald Reagan’s funeral. Peter also was called on to play taps for victims of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as for veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Starting a family.

The couple married in December 2004 and rented a house from friends off the base. Peter reenlisted before his four-year commitment expired in 2006.

“I had seen a lot of Marines go to Iraq and Afghanistan and we hadn’t deployed. I had dreamed of ‘doing the drill instructor thing’ for some time,” Peter explains.

He went to three months of boot camp at Parris Island, this time learning how to teach others. The young couple lived in family housing on the base with new arrival Michael, who was born in August 2006, a month before Karie completed active duty as a sergeant. Karie was in the reserves for four years without being called up and was able to be a stay-at-home mom. Son Mason arrived in July 2008.

Peter’s final official day as a Marine is next week, but he is looking ahead to more public service as he’s trying to become a policeman in Santa Clara.

Once Karie has their two sons in school, she wants to go to college and study physical therapy. For the time being, the Stephens family is in Clayton with Karie’s parents. Her mom Christina is a busy local dentist, while her father Franklin is a retired chemist. The Mason family has been in Clayton for nearly 20 years.

Peter is glad “to have a little time away from John Philip Sousa,” but both plan to stay involved as musicians. She performed at a church Christmas performance last month before they came to Clayton.

Peter was in on the planning of the welcome home reception, but he was unwittingly helping plan for his own welcome as well. Emceed by Bryan Weldon of the Lafayette Flag Brigade, the ceremony that followed the horn-blaring arrival of Karie honored both Stephens for their service to the country.

Mayor Hank Stratford, council members Howard Geller and Julie Pierce and Police Chief Dan Lawrence were there from the city. Long-time friend Mahsa, now a science teacher at the Oakland Military Institute, summed it up: “We’re all so proud of her and she’s back where she belongs.”