09/11/2018
Look at your program, that picture of Billy. Do you see the confidence with which he looks back at you? Even a glint of the devil in his eye? He knows something we don’t. What is it he knows?
On June 30th and July 1st, 1863, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, General John Buford of the Union forces, against overwhelming odds and with great acts of courage, led his men to victory. It was the decisive days of the decisive battle of the decisive war in this nation’s history.
I know this because Billy knew this and could stand on a hillside in Gettysburg and describe it all to you, in detail. He loved great stories of ordinary men rising to extraordinary valor when faced with extreme conditions. He was fond of telling friends: “I am John Buford.”
Honor survives.
So, therefore, this is not about who Billy was but rather who Billy is. The men of Bunker Hill, Gettysburg and Iwo Jima have never died. The Honor and Courage of the men of Bunker Hill lived on in the men of Gettysburg, and that the men of Gettysburg lived on in those of Iwo Jima, and that men of Iwo Jima lived on, and lives on, in the men of September 11th.
Honor lives on but grief does not. Grief fades as surely as we, each of us (in this church), must all face some day. And in the years to come, when the last loved one is gone -- so goes the grief. But their honor survives. And so those who sacrificed, the ones we now mourn, survive the survivors. Long after we are forgotten they shall be remembered.
Future generations of firefighters and many others will remember them and speak their names aloud; they shall be passed on from father to son -- and good and proud men will swear they know the men of September 11th as well as they know their own hearts. They will swear (probably over a pint) that they are those men of September 11th.
“Billy McGinn, Paddy Brown, Billy Burke.” And perhaps the especially astute one, the real student, like Billy, will go further back and remember the men of the South Bronx who fought hundreds of fires and saved countless lives -- Deputy Chief William F. Burke, Sr., Al Niemchek, Frankie Burns, Jim Corcoran.
And these future generations, some not yet born, when tested under fire will use them, these men of September 11th, these God’s handful, as their courage and their honor.
And when we have become dust, they live on.
Weeks after the battle of Gettysburg, this is what John Buford wrote:
“The zeal, bravery and good behavior of the officers and men on the night of June 30th and during July 1st, was commendable to the extreme. A heavy task was before us; we were equal to it and shall remember with pride that at Gettysburg we did our country much service.”
“The zeal, bravery, and good behavior of the officers and men of September 11th was commendable to the extreme. A heavy task was before them; they were equal to it and we shall remember with pride that at New York City they did their country much service.”
Billy had a rendezvous with destiny. Look at that picture again.
This is what he knows: A hundred years from now a young man will stare intently at his girlfriend and rap his knuckles against the table and say: “I am Captain Billy Burke.”
Eulogy, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, NYC, October 25, 2001.
