"All of a sudden, the lieutenant, his stumps are banging up and down on the sheets," Petraeus said. "His head is moving around and very clearly responding to his unit's nickname."

"Everybody in the facility was clapping and crying," Joanne said. "The doctors who had been working on him and giving us all the bad news came running down the hall, 'We heard, we heard.'"

For three weeks, he had not responded to the voices of his family, but that Band of Brothers motto brought him back from the living dead.

"It's just so awesome to be part of that historic unit," Brennan said. "It's just always in the back...

"All of a sudden, the lieutenant, his stumps are banging up and down on the sheets," Petraeus said. "His head is moving around and very clearly responding to his unit's nickname."

"Everybody in the facility was clapping and crying," Joanne said. "The doctors who had been working on him and giving us all the bad news came running down the hall, 'We heard, we heard.'"

For three weeks, he had not responded to the voices of his family, but that Band of Brothers motto brought him back from the living dead.

"It's just so awesome to be part of that historic unit," Brennan said. "It's just always in the back of my head."

"And then it came to the front," Martin said.

"Yes it did," Brennan said.

"After that, he just every day got a little better, a little better, a little better," Jim said.

Just last week, Petraeus introduced Brennan as the unsung hero of the New Jersey Hall of Fame. That walk across the stage brought the house down, and overwhelmed his father.

"I know how tough he is," Jim said. "If there was anybody in this world who could do it, he was the one."

Less than a year after being comatose and unresponsive, he delivered an acceptance speech to a crowd of 2,000.

And guess what happened next.

"One, two, three, Curihee," shouted the crowd.

Know what Currihee means?

It means "stand alone." How perfect is that?