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
[ Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | Top | Last ]
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
[ Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | Top | Last ]
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.
To BCM and Chief Negotiator. Rest peacefully, good souls.
Dear Yankee, thank you so very much for posting this. You have made me see the way out of my sadness at the loss of these two great men. Thank you again, SVITW
God Bless Battalion Chief Moran!
Thank you to all firefighters!
LoneGOPinCT, Mrs.LoneGOPinCT, & family
Yes, doug, FReepers are a breed apart and a cut above. They are the ones who will stand and defend, not turn and run.
We have been privileged to have John Moran among us.
As I was telling a freeper from New Jeresy today. Who knows how many freepers we may have lost because of these attacks. Many may have been daily lurkers, who read FR at work, who came to Free Republic to read the news. We may never know. God Bless them all.
I can't tell you how often this has been on my mind these past three weeks, since Silly first began to track down the city freepers who hadn't posted in a while. I was so relieved that everyone had been accounted for. Now this. And now I wonder, how many lurkers (in a building the size of the WTC, it's hard to believe there wasn't ONE person who lurked), how many commuters from Jersey and Connecticut, how many people who may have been in town VISITING from out of state, and not told anyone from FR about their travel plans?
What I'm saying is this--there are too many Freepers with absolutely nothing on their profile page! I know it's a privacy issue with many, but could everyone please consider flying their state flag and including their city--nothing more than that? If something else happens, God forbid, it will be easier to track everyone down in that location.
I know Appy Pappy has been working for days to find out if BCM was among the dead downtown. Think of another freeper, in the future, trying to figure out if YOU have been a victim of disaster. Just mention your city in your profile. Please.
It's just a suggestion, but think about it.
"AND GOD SHALL WIPE AWAY ALL TEARS FROM THEIR EYES; AND THERE SHALL BE NO MORE DEATH,NEITHER SORROW,NOR CRYING,NEITHER SORROW,NOR CRYING, NEITHER SHALL BE ANY MORE PAIN: FOR THE FORMER THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY
REV 21:4
BCM...God bless and comfort his family...and thank God for HEROES and those who love their friends to make the ultimate sacrifice.
May the Lord grant us all BCM's style of courage when push comes to shove.
TEARFUL TRIBUTE: Kim Moran puts her arms around her sons Dylan (left) and Ryan yesterday at a Queens memorial service for her husband John Moran, a fire battalion chief. - Dennis Caruso |
It was from his brother, Michael, a Manhattan firefighter, who offered words of caution and a promise.
"John, be careful," he said. "And I'll see you there."
It was not to be.
"I didn't see him that day. But I do see him now all the time," Michael Moran told hundreds of mourners who gathered at St. Francis de Sales Church in the Rockaways yesterday.
"I see him when I look in my mother's eyes. I feel him when I share the grief of his beautiful wife, Kim. I hear him when I speak to my beautiful sisters and I know he's not gone when I look at his boys Ryan and Dylan."
Ryan and Dylan, heartbreakingly beautiful blond-haired boys in matching outfits, clasped their mother's hands. Before them were their daddy's hat, his helmet and a picture of the man friends called the "gentle giant."
The Bravest of the Brave.
Rest In Peace, BCM.
BCM's 'personal profile page' here on FR reads, in part:
'Location: Deep behind enemy lines in New York City'
My best uneducated guess is that, when he wrote that, he was referring to the fact that NYC is politically leftist-concentrated. But his reference to 'enemy lines' is very sad.
I never bumped into John here on FreeRepublic. Sure wish I had. One doesn't cross paths with true heroes, or men of genuine courage, very often.
He is surely in a better place. Let's hope that his sacrifice will serve as an example for the rest of us. There are perilous days ahead, and the more John Morans there are among us, the more assured we are of victory over the enemy who took him from us.
Prayers for his family. This is so sad.
May he rest in peace.
Thank you.
Rest in Peace.
It would be nice to start a contribution thread for his family.
Thank you.
Dear friends they'll be no sad farewells,
They'll be no tear dimmed eyes.Where all is peace and joy and love,
And the soul of man never dies.
But that will be tomorrow...
For tonight the tears will not be denied.
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