Thanks to fivestar...... From the. New york times archives
A City Firefighter's Funeral, in Agonizing Replay
By DOREEN CARVAJAL
Published: January 11, 1996
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For the mourners in dark uniforms who gathered today in the Church of St. Lawrence the Martyr, the rituals of death had become painfully familiar: a bagpipe's shuddering notes, a red fire truck reserved for funerals and the New York City Mayor paying tribute to yet another firefighter killed on the job.
When Mayor Rudolph P. Giuliani praised the courage of James B. Williams, they applauded, and when Fire Commissioner Howard Safir described Mr. Williams as a "brother," they clapped vigorously, but no one knew how to respond when 2-year-old Matthew Williams suddenly delivered his own fierce eulogy to his father, his wails of "Daddy! Daddy!" briefly halting the funeral.
They kept their silence, some 6,000 in all, mostly firefighters in pressed uniforms and white gloves, each uncomfortable in the knowledge that it could be his child crying, wondering why there have been so many funerals, thinking he could be next. Firefighter Williams, 38, the first city firefighter to die this year, was the 10th in the last two years and the 763d to die in the line of duty in New York City.
Only five days earlier, the bagpipers from the Fire Department's Emerald Society Pipe Band were playing the same dirges for another firefighter, Lieut. John M. Clancy, 35, who like Mr. Williams lived on Long Island and was married to a schoolteacher.
Lieutenant Clancy's widow, Dawn, is six months pregnant with their first child. Firefighter Williams's widow, Jean, has James, 4, as well as Matthew, and was so close to term with her third pregnancy that fire officials posted an ambulance outside the Roman Catholic church in case she went into labor during the funeral Mass.
Firefighter Williams attended Lieutenant Clancy's funeral Mass in Blue Point, L.I., the day before he died. Today, in turn, Lieutenant Clancy's mother did her best to comfort Mr. Williams's mother, Frances, a dark figure in a black coat and hat who sobbed silently as her son's coffin was lifted aboard the department's funeral fire truck.
"There are so many parallels between them," said Richard Scheirer, a deputy fire commissioner and 29-year veteran of the department. "It's really been hard on us. They come from such wonderful families."
Both men died in Queens fires; Mr. Williams, a 12-year-veteran, was fatally engulfed in flames Friday as he broke through a door to search for victims. Lieutenant Clancy also died searching for survivors in a burning house, when the floor collapsed.
Those patterns were disturbing to the men in uniform who filled the wooden pews of St. Lawrence and stood outside in the bitter cold, listening to speakers blaring the Mass and the whistle of a passing train. On the buses that rumbled into Sayville, in the station houses of New York City, they were asking the same question: Why is firefighting getting riskier?
Outside the church, a small group of instructors from the Fire Department Academy debated that issue while they waited for the Mass to start. They pointed out that New York City firefighters spend more time in training, usually 13 weeks, than they did in the 1980's. As "probys," probationary employees, they practice fighting fires in a special building nicknamed the smokehouse.
"It's difficult for us, really a shock, because the funerals are getting so common," said an instructor of 14 years who spoke on condition that he not be identified. "We're better trained than we were before. We are drilling every day. We have better equipment."
His students, he said, are welcome to ask questions about the recent deaths of firefighters, but he won't raise the issue. "I don't bring it up," he said, "because we don't have the answers for what's happening"
Some firefighters suggest that it might prevent deaths if the ladder companies returned to having five firefighters, not four, on each pumping crew. Others talk about how modern firefighting has changed -- fires are more toxic and new equipment makes it possible for firefighters to move quickly into fiercely burning buildings, to their peril.
"This is just devastating," said Dan Wetzel, a firefighter of three years, who tramped away from the church after the fire truck slowly drove away with Mr. Williams' casket. "I spoke to my parents," he said. "My father's a retired chief. And they wanted to know if something had broke down in the system. People who were involved in old-fashioned firefighting don't know what's going on any more."
Thomas Von Essen, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, acknowledged that many of the firefighters are angry because they believe that safety could be increased by restoring the fifth person to the crews. "But would that have made a difference when the lieutenant fell through the floor?" he asked. "I don't think more people would have made much difference there. What I think we're doing is, we're just trying too hard to help."
Mr. Williams, a Brooklyn native who grew up in Oakdale, L.I., came from a family of firefighters who have risked their lives many times helping others. His brother Kevin, a Fire Department lieutenant in the Bronx, has been cited five times for bravery and his brother Ralph, a Queens firefighter, has received four commendations.
Addressing the mourners, a Fire Department chaplain, the Rev. Mychal Judge, spoke of how their father, Ralph Williams, also a retired firefighter, gathered his family together on Christmas Eve and asked them "to look at each other because they might never be together again." Later, after his son died, Father Judge said, Ralph Williams began to doubt that he was right to encourage his sons to grow up to be firefighters.
But perhaps the answer to his doubts came today from his late son, whose favorite poem was called "What Is a Fireman?" Apologizing first for the old-fashioned title that ignores the women in station houses, Kevin Williams read it aloud in the church.
"He's the guy next door," he said, "a man's man with the mind of a little boy," who loves the roar of engines and stands tall. He is also a man "who doesn't wave flags or shout abuse and when he marches it's behind a fallen comrade."
Today, for the last time, James B. Williams led the way.
