More than four decades have passed since Staff Sgt. Karl Taylor died charging an enemy machine gun bunker in Vietnam, an act that saved at least two dozen fellow Marines. His comrades and family can't and won't forget.

"I would not be alive today if it were not for Karl," said Larry Gore, 60, of Hamlin, N.Y., who served with Taylor in India Company, 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines. "I really owe every second chance I ever had to that man."

Taylor's children always lived in the shadow of their father's military heroism. They were 8, 7 and 4 on the day he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by President Nixon in 1971.

"It was pretty much overwhelming, meeting the president. I remember him bending down to shake my hand," Karl Taylor Jr., 46, of Midway said about his day at the White House. "There was a whole state dinner kind of event and us kids just wanted to eat hot dogs."

More than 300 people gathered Saturday at a remote Washington County cemetery for a presentation of a Medal of Honor flag to the Taylor family. The flag has been given since 2004 to medal winners or their families who request it. Plans began around Memorial Day to get one for Taylor with the hope that his widow, Shirley, would receive it. She died on July 21 at age 69.

"This has been a great day. I would have liked it to be a little sooner, because of our mother," Taylor Jr. said about the ceremony at Independence Cemetery in Independence. "My wife and I had talked about getting a flag for several years — for my mother to use on special holidays like July 4 and Memorial Day."

Six members of Taylor's platoon attended the ceremony, and they remember Dec. 8, 1968, as if it were yesterday.

Taylor, a native of Maryland whose official residence was Avella at the time of his death, charged the bunker so that his platoon could rescue wounded Marines. He was able to take out the enemy position just before he died.

The flag presentation was the latest of many reunions surviving platoon members have held over the years, but more bittersweet.

"Reunions are not usually this emotional. I was not expecting this," said Michael DiGiampaolo, 61, of Lakewood, Calif.

Ron Hoover, 73, of Carlisle in Cumberland County said he thinks about Taylor every day. The two met in 1966 while they were drill instructors at Parris Island, S.C. They later reconnected in Vietnam, where Hoover, a captain, was Taylor's commanding officer.

"This day means more to me than life itself," Hoover told the crowd.

Confined to a wheelchair as a result of wounds he suffered later in Vietnam and neatly dressed in a bright Marine jacket covered with medals, Hoover was lifted out of his wheelchair and held tightly onto a walker as he spoke.

"I am supposed to be a hardened combat Marine, but this is hard. I can't say enough good about Karl. Karl just reacted and did the right thing. Karl did not even think about fear," he said.

Over the years, Hoover has been in touch with the Taylor family. Other platoon members, like Gore, met his children — Sheryl Rodwick, 47, of Carrick; Taylor Jr.; and Kevin Taylor, 42, of Culpepper, Va. — for the first time.

"It's been funny. I've always thought of them as little kids, which they were when I knew him," Gore said.

Taylor was 29 when he died. Gore was 19. "He seemed so much older than many of us."

Jim Rogers drove 740 miles from LaGrange, Ga., to attend the flag presentation. It left him barely able to speak.

"It's all been said. What else can you say?" he said as tears welled up.

Taylor Jr. has vivid memories of the day his father died. Marines and a chaplain showed up at the home of his grandparents in Avella.

"I was told to go to your room for now. My grandfather was called home from work at Weirton Steel. But the thing about kids that adults never remember is that kids are smarter then adults recognize. I knew exactly what was going on. I knew my father died," he said.

His father was buried on Christmas Eve 1968.

The Medal of Honor flag — a light blue flag with gold fringe bearing thirteen white stars in a configuration as on the Medal of Honor ribbon — was introduced in 2004, the result of an act of Congress in 2002.

Largely the idea of Bill Kendall of Jefferson, Iowa, the authorization bill was sponsored by his congressmen, Rep. Tom Latham and Sen. Charles Grassley, both Republicans.

"The flag is a nice complement to the medal, which is much smaller," said Fred Love, Latham's spokesman.

The flag can be presented to any recipient of the medal and, if the recipient is dead, to immediate relatives. The award was presented to the Taylor children by retired Marine Brig. Gen. David Papak.

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