There are no atheists in foxholes.

Medal of Honor recipients Joe Marm and Thomas Kelley will tell you that. The pair spent their Friday morning addressing the student body of Knoxville Catholic High School, a group they—as graduates of Catholic schools and members of the denomination themselves—felt they could identify with.

“You’re never as close to God as you are when you’re out there in the woods under the stars, being close to death every day,” Marm told the audience gathered before him in the school’s gymnasium following the opening prayer. “I used to carry a holy card with me in Vietnam. They told us to say the prayer for nine days and we wouldn’t be killed in combat.”

The 73-year-old retired colonel received his medal for acts of valor performed in the 1965 Battle of la Drang, during which he single-handedly attacked an enemy position and deliberately exposed himself to their machine gun in order to draw fire away from his platoon.

Noted in his official Medal of Honor citation for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty,” Marm asserted to the students they, too, have the ability to display similar ethics in their daily lives.

“Be confident in what you are doing and know you can defeat the enemy,” he said. “It’s just like your schooling here. You have to study hard and do the best you can, and that means a lot of preparation and a lot of homework. That’s the same in combat.”

Thomas Kelley, 75-year-old retired Naval captain and recipient of both the Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart, agreed and told students of a special brand of courage they had the power to harness.

“You hear all these stories of shots being fired, people being wounded, that sort of thing, and you hear people say, ‘That must’ve taken a lot of courage,'” Kelley said. “But there’s a different kind of courage you all face every day here which doesn’t involve being shot at or getting a medal or anything. It’s something called moral courage.”

Kelley stressed the importance of students taking it upon themselves to perform seemingly small acts of bravery, like standing up for bullied peers or declining the opportunity to cheat on a test.

“You don’t have to be in a uniform to make those decisions,” he said. “You just have to be a good person knowing the right thing to do.”

Although he was raised Catholic and had gone through eight years of Jesuit education, an experience he joked made boot camp comparatively “a piece of cake,” Kelley did not feel personally affirmed in his faith until June 15, 1969.

That day, Kelley was leading eight river assault craft boats on a mission in South Vietnam when his convoy came under attack. After one of the boats suffered a mechanical failure leaving it exposed to enemy fire, Kelley maneuvered his own boat between the enemy and his vulnerable men.

While the ensuing battle was severe enough to cause Kelley the loss of an eye, he believes a greater force at work that day prevented the loss of his life.

“I hadn’t been a good Catholic boy for a few years; I didn’t go to mass all the time and that sort of thing,” he said. “This particular day happened to be Father’s Day, as someone had told me. I had three little girls at home and knew it was going to be tough that day and so, for some reason, I got up at 3 a.m. that morning, went to mass and received Communion.

“The rest of my life changed that day. I think it had something to do with me surviving.”

Marm and Kelley spoke more with students and faculty on matters of courage and morals for the next hour before their ride, a helicopter similar to the one that transported Marm to Vietnam some 50 years ago, arrived to whisk them back to the Holiday Inn at World’s Fair Park.

Before bidding their young audience farewell, both men called their visit to Knoxville Catholic a “highlight” of their time at this year’s Medal of Honor Convention.

“You have a great community, a great city and a tremendous high school,” Marm said. “This is what America is all about. You’re the future of it.”