Timothy Burke laid to rest

It's the hardest part of his job, a funeral Mass for someone too young. Father Tom O'Dwyer spoke soothing words during the service, talking about Timothy Burke's gallantry and bravery and how "he did what Jesus did -- voluntarily gave himself up for others, including all of us here."

An hour later, after the Army honor guard had dispersed and the hearse went off to the crematorium, O'Dwyer stood outside Little Flower Church in Hollywood and swallowed hard. "It really is tough," he said. "This is a good, decent, upstanding family."

A good family that had to say goodbye on Monday, 12 days after Army Specialist Tim Burke was killed in Iraq.

He was 24.

Family and friends said goodbye in the same church where Burke was baptized as a 1-month-old on Oct. 31, 1982.

It was the same church where O'Dwyer presided over the wedding of Burke's oldest brother, Michael, and where Tim stood godfather to Michael's daughter Michelle at her baptism in December 2004.

On Monday, Michael Burke held Michelle, 2, in his arms as his brother's flag-draped coffin was carried in. Burke's mother, Sharon Paulette, dabbed her face with a tissue as the procession went by.

Near the end of the service, after her boy was saluted with three volleys of gunfire and a bugler's rendition of taps from the church entrance, an Army officer presented the American flag that had covered the coffin, carefully folded, to Paulette in the front pew.

Almost everyone in the sanctuary choked back tears.

In a war that's been too easy to forget for too many Americans, this scene hit home. And it hurt.

"Two more months," Father O'Dwyer said later. "That's the thing that gets you."

Burke's tour was supposed to end in December.

But war, like death, doesn't know from a calendar.

Burke was the fourth South Floridian killed in Iraq in a month. Marine Pfc. Christopher Riviere, 21, of Cooper City, died Sept. 26, only nine days into his first tour. Lance Cpl. Rene Martinez, 20, of Miami, was killed Sept. 24, and Army Cpl. Alexander Jordan, 31, of Miami, was killed Sept. 10.

Burke was killed with three others from his unit during a weapons search in Taji on Oct. 4. His family said a bomb exploded after he went into a building.

The official Pentagon release said they died "after being attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire and other weapons." Also killed: Dean Bright, 32, of Roseburg, Ore.; Christopher Moudry, 31, of Baltimore; and George Obourn Jr., 20, of Creve Coeur, Ill.

There have been 53 American military deaths in Iraq this month, 2,753 since the war began in March 2003.

At three years and seven months, the Iraq War is about two months away from lasting as long as American involvement in World War II.

Burke's family welcomed the public to the funeral Mass on Monday and the viewing on Sunday so that people would remember.

"When you turn on the news, it seems all you hear about is sex scandals in Congress, or Vice President Cheney shooting somebody on a hunting trip," said Michael Burke, 33, a carpenter. "It's easy to forget what's happening to average Joes."

His brother was far from average, choosing to enlist in the Army in 2004, when conditions in Iraq had already deteriorated, because he wanted to improve his chances of becoming a civilian paramedic.

His mother begged him not to join. Michael, a bear of a man, said his brother didn't tell him until after he enlisted, "because he knew what my reaction would be."

Recalled Michael: "I said, `If you have to join the military, why not join the Coast Guard?' He never explained why. He just said it was something he had to do."

Tim Burke returned to Hollywood on leave in April, five months into his Iraq tour. Father O'Dwyer recalled him showing up for Easter services in his Army dress uniform, then asking for a special blessing.

"He said, `I'm going away in a few days,'" O'Dwyer recalled. "You could see there was some trepidation there."

On Monday, mourners filed past easels covered with photos of Burke and his family during happier times, and a portrait of Burke in his combat gear taken in Iraq, surrounded by five smiling Iraqi boys.

Also in attendance: Burke's fiancee, Karishna Gooden, 19, of Waco, Texas; his stepfather, John Paulette; his two brothers; his sisters-in-law Monica and Tameka; his nieces Erica, 5, and Michelle, 2; and his nephew Travis, 3.

Burke's father, Michael Sr., died when Tim was 3. Tim's remains will be interred next to his father's at Fred Hunter's Memorial Gardens in Hollywood.

There were contingents from South Broward High School, where Burke played football and graduated in 2000 and where his brother Matthew and cousin Brad Fatout teach, and the Hollywood Fire Rescue Department, where he wanted to work after his Army service.

There also was a group of 20 motorcyclists and flag bearers from the Patriot Guard Riders, an organization that attends military funerals throughout the country to show unity and respect. The group began with three people last year; it now has almost 60,000 members, according to its Web site.

"We have to let the families know they're not alone," said ride captain Ralph Walker, 65, of Ocala, an Army veteran who presented Burke's mother with a pin and plaque.

Walker said he attended funerals in Jacksonville on Friday and Deltona on Saturday.

"This is my sixth one, and hopefully the last," Walker said.

"But we know it won't be," said David Drury, 35, of Boca Raton, another Patriot Guard Rider.

In the church's reception hall, Burke's mother showed me the plaque, along with an honorary Hollywood Fire Rescue Department helmet that an official presented, with her son's name inscribed beneath the lid.

I had just one question. If President Bush were here, what would she say?

She paused. "How should I say this," Sharon Paulette said. "I'm not angry at God. I'm not angry at the Army, because Tim loved being a part of it. The only person I'm angry at is President Bush. Because how could this go on for so long? … I don't know if that's right or wrong, that's just the way I feel."

On this day, she seemed entitled to her opinion.

From the Sun Sentinel

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