By Herb Jackson, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT - 

Eric M. Mellinger was a Marine colonel directing humanitarian relief in the Philippines in 2013 when a delegation from Congress showed up that included Rep. Chris Smith, a 36-year veteran and dean of the New Jersey delegation.

“He looks over and he goes, ‘Do you remember me?’ ” Smith, R-Mercer County, recalled last week. “I didn’t remember his face, but I did remember the name.”

Mellinger was a high school student from Old Bridge and Smith was serving his first term in 1982 when the congressman nominated the youth to the Air Force Academy in 1982. That helped spark a 30-year military career for Mellinger that included five tours in combat, command of recruit training at Parris Island, S.C., a stint as chief of staff to the Third Marine Expeditionary Force on Okinawa, Japan, and a posting to the Pentagon in the Secretary of Defense’s office.

Mellinger recently retired, and Smith presented him a flag May 16 that flew over the Capitol as thanks for his service.

As he spends his first Memorial Day in more than three decades as a civilian and awaits word on whether he’ll get a job as an adviser to the House Armed Services Committee, Mellinger said this was not the life he was expecting when, as a student at Cedar Ridge High School, he sent his application for an academy nomination to Smith’s office.

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Then a physical found an astigmatism in one eye, and his hopes of flying military jets were grounded. On advice from his father, a Marine veteran, he approached that branch about a commission.

“My personal desire as far as flying aircraft was eclipsed by a desire to lead young Americans,” he said. The desire grew when he entered combat as a first lieutenant during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, a tour that included breaching minefields in Iraq.

New Jersey members of Congress say they see strong competition among students seeking nominations to the military academies, and many use screening panels made up of former military members and education leaders to help them make the final selections.

“They are looking for the finest potential officers for each of the services that we can find,” Smith said.

Congressional offices, which get a limited number of spots at each of the academies, track the students they are able to place. The 2010 death in Afghanistan of Deptford resident Salvatore Corma, who had been nominated to West Point by then-Rep. Rob Andrews, led to his successor, Rep. Donald Norcross, to sponsor the law renaming the township post office in Corma’s name.

But in most cases, congressional aides said, the offices do not know what happens to the students they nominate after they leave the academies. That made Smith’s encounter with Mellinger so many years later so unusual.

“It was one of those things where I saw him in action, and I was in awe of the respect his men had for him,” Smith said. “It wasn’t just because he had the position. He was very well liked, very can-do, and very smart.”