Posted on 10/04/2001 1:22:45 PM PDT by AppyPappy
The bone-chilling wail of bagpipe playing "Amazing Grace" echoed through a Queens church yesterday as yet another fallen firefighter from the World Trade Center tragedy was memorialized in death.
It was yet another day — of many more to come — for Masses and memorial services for both heroic rescue workers and innocent civilians lost in the flames and collapsing towers.
At the memorial Mass for 49th Battalion Chief John Moran, his younger brother, Firefighter Michael Moran of Ladder 3, recalled how he spoke to his brother by cell phone after the second plane crashed into the Trade Center.
"I told him to be careful," the younger Moran told mourners, including his brother's wife, Kim, and two sons, Ryan, 7, and Dylan, 4. "I didn't see him there that day, but now I see him all the time."
The memorial Mass at St. Francis de Sales Church in Belle Harbor, Queens, was conducted by the fallen firefighter's uncle, Father Paul Moran, who called his 42-year-old nephew's last assignment a "mission of love, to save life, not destroy it."
Mayor Giuliani called for a standing ovation for the 20-year fire veteran, who held a law degree from Fordham University and was injured in the Father's Day explosion at an Astoria hardware store that killed three firefighters.
The mayor said while Moran's two young sons may not fully comprehend all that's happened, "The thing I want them to understand for their entire life is that their father is a great man."
I found these:
To: ELS
This was the best time I've ever had in the pouring rain! I was shouting so hard that I can hardly speak today. While the chants were great and certainly got people's attention, I personally loved it when we sang "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America." I think that really stopped people in their tracks (and completely confounded the liberals).
32 Posted on 11/27/2000 15:45:04 PST by BCM
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After the Bush victory:
To: AndrewC
My fellow Freepers, who sustained me through all the insanity.
24 Posted on 11/27/2000 19:20:44 PST by BCM
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BTW I found this one as well:
To: bcjohnson
God bless you, you will be missed.
4 Posted on 01/03/2000 22:37:18 PST by BCM
John 15
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
I woke today not in my home state of Washington, but in Texas....scouting for land to purchase. I am political refugee in search if a new homeland.
I opened up my phone and went to Freerepublic to post something about BCM as he and I spoke on this website enough that I considered him an “online friend.”
I was very happy to see someone had created a thread to remember him by already.
Here is my BCM story which unfortunately came after he died.
I was to fly with my wife and 2.5 month old son on 9-12....going to Oceanside CA to exhibit the beautiful boy to his maternal grandparents.
That was not to be.
But I had to fly somewhere else a short time after domestic air travel resumed.
I arrived at Seatac Airport before the gate agents even began work and was standing in line as the terminal awoke for the day.
Beneath the ticket agent floor, in the bowels of the airport, is the baggage handling area and small trains that haul you to other terminals run through the same area.
The airport is quiet...no rush of people or children crying.
I feel the 1st train run of the day vibrating the floor I am standing atop as it rolls along on the level below me.
It makes the floor bounce up and down just a little and as I am feeling myself bouncing.....the public address system begins broadcasting. “John Moran, paging John Moran....”
This repeats several times and I had tears begin to escape my eyes.
At this same moment the ticket agent begins to ask me the standard questions and notices my state of sadness.
I give her a very quick explanation and then she asks me “where would you like to sit?”
My response was “wherever I can be of most use.”
She looks up at me from her computer terminal a little confused, then realizes what I mean.
She assigns me a seat in the first row closest to the cockpit on this flight which has no 1st row and I walk off to my gate thinking about BCM.
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