We would march in to the
church parking lot on Friday at 0800, following our hearts.
We would march out of the
cemetery on Friday at 1300, following the bagpiper.
I wasn’t able to
participate in the escort that brought Corporal Phillip J. Brodnick
from
At
The coin was given to me
(but intended for Kevin) by Mark Pleasant.
I was glad to have an appropriate person make an impression on him. At both
It is probably good for
him now to have more school and fewer funerals in his life.
~~~
On Saturday, Kevin was
with his mother and his grandmother and I returned on the bike flying a 5 by 8
for the first time. When I arrived, the
Lieutenant Governor was already there.
Cops were there. Many from
Naturally, the United
States Army was there.
And we were there. This is just a few of us.
We think of ourselves as
providing comfort to the grieving family and that is certainly true. Even if they don’t see us except in the
newspaper photo the next day, they know we are there because we are there by
their invitation. But we have other
audiences.
The police, who were
likely once soldiers themselves, and who share with soldiers a dangerous job,
must be reassured to see unqualified public support. Remember how it was before 911 – before
9/11/2001? I had a 3 by 5 that I flew on
the Fourth of July and maybe a few other days of the year, and a few other
houses would also show the colors on those few occasions, but most did not.
This country got patriotic
on that September day. Maybe it was
because the American Airlines Flight 11 hit the north tower 18 minutes before
United Airlines Flight 175 hit the south tower.
Those 18 minutes gave us time to turn on the television and ponder this
bad luck. So we all saw the second
impact live.
And it became clear that
this was not a sad tragedy. This was not
an innocent accident. This was an
attack.
And my sadness was
displaced by rage.
We forget, living in the
middle of
40 minutes after the
second
Now my
rage turned into a focused, seething anger. There would
be time later to heal our wounds. Now
was the time to fight back and defend ourselves! Where are the people who are supposed to
fight back? Don’t we have people for that?
27 minutes later we fought
back. United Airlines Flight 93 was the
battleground. We fought that battle to a
draw and we have flow our 3 by 5 above our garage door continuously ever since. In a few days it will have been six years.
Most of our fallen heroes
entered the military after 911. How do I know? Because in a few days it will have been six
years and these are the ages of our war dead from August: 30, 29, 25, 24, 52, 22, 20, 21, 28, 19, 25,
21, 29, 27, 18, 29, 23, 22, 22, 20, 26, 22, 21, 19, 29, 27, 24, 23, 21, 26, 23,
24, 31, 21, 27, 31, 31, 20, 39, 23, 24, 31, 30, 29, 37, 26, 20, 29, 22, 28, 20,
30, 21, 24, 35, 23, 20, 30, 29, 28, 30, 21, 26, 25, 23, 21, 25, 20, 21, 25, 22,
20, 20, 34, 30, 33, 37, 43, 36, 21, 25, 22, 21, 21, 38, 21, 37, 26, 35, 25, 24,
43, 29, 24, 25, 22, 22, 19, 40, 34.
They joined-up freely,
knowing the enemy they would face, because they are patriots. We stand right behind them because we are
patriots and because we want them to know we are right behind them.
The official name of 9/11
is Patriot Day. Dave is a big patriot.
This is a little patriot.
(I caught him between
throws. Every time his daddy handed him
the flag, he threw it as far as he could.)
So we stood at the
church. The hearse arrived, led by a
small escort of PGRiders. Most of us, and the soldiers and the cops,
simply stood in silent respect as Phillip was carried into the church. We continued to stand silently as the many
mourners walked between us and past us, following him in.
Then we could stand down
which gave us some time to stand around – but not for long. A third of our group went ahead to the
cemetery to provide a proper welcome for Phillip to his final resting
place. They would line both sides of the
entrance with flags. The rest of us
would soon lead the hearse through their corridor of red, white and blue.
We would then dismount and
our combined number would form a “circle of comfort” around the graveside
ceremonies.
Typically our formation
holds until most of the mourners have filtered away. By contrast, the conclusion of the “full
military honor” has the army marching out to a soft “left…left…left”.
This time, a bagpipe would
mark the end of the formal service. The
piper turned away from the casket and walked through our circle between two of
our number. At that moment one turned
toward him and followed him out, leading the entire circle. The other turned away from him and was the
last to follow around the circle and out.
I had never seen that before but I thought it was a dignified and
respectful way for us to leave.
The bikes were parked far
enough away so that the noise of our departure did not intrude on those
remaining with Phillip. I remained to
take pictures and talk. By the time I got
to the lane where we had parked, mine was only bike left. My 5 by 8 was gently fluttering. And my 4-ways were gently flashing.
The peace of the cemetery
would not be broken by the sound of my bike.
Phillip was the son of
Burbank Police Officer James Brodnick. The Burbank Police Department had invited the
soldiers and us to a luncheon at the Burbank VFW. (Perhaps that is why there were no PGRiders left to give me a push-start.) So that their officers could go ahead of
them, Burbank Police Chief Radowicz and Captain Gename were still with me.
In a concession to the heat of the day, the Chief opened his coat. Then the two
The
photos from this mission are posted to three albums:
A
few from the visitation and 80 from the funeral
100 more from the
funeral
and
another 100 from
the funeral