The boy within defined the man people knew and loved.

"It was the boy in the man who cared so much for us," said long-time friend Joe Cyr last Friday afternoon during a service commemorating the life of Larry Saunders.

"I loved the boy in the man."

He died on the afternoon of January 6 while running in Fort Steilacoom Park.

In the morning of Jan. 15, approximately 600 community leaders, military personnel, police officers, firefighters and family friends gathered at the Lewis North Chapel at Joint Base Lewis-McChord to honor and remember Saunders.

"He was built to serve," Megan Saunders, his daughter, said.

Serve he did - his country and his city.

Col. (Ret.) Saunders served in various command and staff positions including assignments with the 8th Infantry Division, 9th Infantry Division, 25th Infantry Division and I Corps during his 28 years in the Army.

With his experience in leading soldiers serving in military police brigades, in 1995 Saunders was selected to be the Director for Stability Operations, Multinational Force Haiti, Organization of American States, Port-au-Prince.

He led over 1,000 international police and security personnel in operations to reduce crime, quell civil disorder, and disarm the 7,700-member Haitian Army.  

Along with this, he organized, equipped and trained a 3,100-person Haitian police force, restored order in riotous prisons, trained indigenous correctional units, and developed a baseline plan to organize and field a 7,000-member Haitian National police force.

Saunders retired from the military in 1998, but the man who, as a little boy led his kindergarten class over a fence and off the playground, found another way to serve - he became the city of Lakewood's first chief of police.

He was selected as Chief by the Pierce County Sheriff's Department for the new and then contract city of Lakewood.

At the time, the city had the state's second highest crime rate.

Knowing he would command a civilian police force, Saunders voluntarily attended the Washington State Basic Law Enforcement Academy with officer recruits who were half his age.

"We began to focus locally on our issues, and Larry's outreach into the community was outstanding and so important in building a police department that serves the community," Scott Rohlfs, Lakewood's first city manager, wrote in an email.

Saunders proceeded to introduce numerous programs that resulted in an immediate reduction in the crime rate, and the Lakewood Police Department earned recognition for its professionalism, neighborhood and minority outreach, community policing initiative, and traffic safety programs.

In 2004, Lakewood formed its own police department, and Saunders was hired as the City's first chief.

"He had shown me what others saw ... a career professional of the highest standards, and a strong commitment to the community," continued Rohlfs.

That commitment began with the work of building a new police department.

"We worked side-by-side," Debi Young, Lakewood's current human resources director, wrote in an email.

She said that Saunders was not looking for perfect people, just the right people who were honest, worked hard and had a good attitude.

"Chief Saunders stated in a presentation that he felt he was the ‘father' of the department and I was the ‘mother.'"

The father and first leader of the police department sincerely believed in community, particularly in its youth.

"A corollary to Saunders' closely held philosophy of community was that once kids were positively occupied," wrote David Anderson, president of the Tillicum-Woodbrook Neighborhood Association, "their community being restored, they - and the place they called home - would never, ever, be allowed to regress to what it - and they - had been before."  

Anderson said that Saunders walked his talk; in the spring of 2007 he wrote out a personal check to help kids in Tillicum to help fund a neighborhood baseball team.

Saunders' community policing efforts drew notice; in 2005 he was named Washington Police Chief of the Year.

He retired from the Lakewood Police Department in 2008.

"He saw an opportunity to pass the baton," commented Mike Zaro, Lakewood's current police chief.

"Coupled with global circumstances and his drive to serve, he decided to serve in Iraq."

Saunders returned to the Army for a 15-month assignment as the senior advisor to the Baghdad Police College.

During his assignment, Saunders coordinated United Nations, European Union, NATO and U.S. police training; led a team of Danish, British and U.S. senior police advisors in creating the Iraqi police university system; and enabled Iraqi delivered institutional training at internationally acceptable standards of training to over 18,000 police officers in 2008 and 26,000 in 2009.

In his early 60s at the time, Saunders returned home to Lakewood in 2009. He soon found himself involved with several civic and nonprofit groups.

"'When you are sixty or sixty-five years old, what will you look back on?' Dad used to ask us," related Megan Saunders.

As it turned out for Saunders, he would have more to reflect on.

He involved himself with a number of civic and nonprofit organizations ranging from the Boys and Girls Club of South Puget Sound and the Lions and Rotary clubs to the Boys & Girls Club Milgard Family HOPE Center.

"His motto was always ‘let's help these kids before they get involved with law enforcement and get them on the right track,'" said the center's CEO Mark Starnes.

Unwavering in his connections with the military and the Lakewood community, in 2014 Saunders helped launch Rally Point 6.

"Leading the establishment of RP/6 was his pure commitment and passion to ensure successful community reintegration of all his fellow servicemembers, veterans and their families," wrote Anne Sprute, founder and CEO of RP/6.

Former RP/6 board member and current Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy added, "His words were backed up by actions; Larry was a true servant-leader; and he always had the best interests of the community in mind; he cared; he will be greatly missed."

Sixty-seven years young at his passing, Larry Saunders had lived a life of service and leadership to his country and community.

That is cause for reflection.  Rest in peace.