Eric Rivera laid to rest

ATLANTIC CITY — Hundreds of friends, family members and other well-wishers who never met him mourned Spc. Eric Rivera, the first Atlantic City resident to die in the Iraq war, at a funeral Saturday in a resort church and later burial at the county veteran's cemetery.

“We are not here to celebrate the death of a soldier,” said the Rev. Joseph Pham, pastor of Our Lady Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church, where Rivera had his first Communion, “but the life of a hero. He surely did not sacrifice his life just for Atlantic City, but for all of America as well.”

Family friend Janet Markowitz said they called Rivera “The Great One” when he worked at her Chester's Discount Plants at Iowa and Arctic avenues because he was boundlessly optimistic, strong and kind.

Once he re-enlisted last June, Markowitz said, “I remember him telling me there was more work to do there and he would be home when the job is done.”

“I'm sure that Eric is OK,” she added later, with difficulty. “After all he is ‘The Great One.'”
Rivera, a 2003 Atlantic City High School graduate, died Nov. 14 west of Ramadi, Iraq, when he was shot and killed while his platoon searched for a weapons cache. He and his brother, Jeff Rivera, a prospective Atlantic City police officer, did not tell their mother Cayetana Palacios he was in Iraq because they did not want to frighten her.

It is believed Rivera is the first Atlantic City resident to die in wartime since March 1971, when Marine Corps Sgt. James Bingenheimer, 23, became the last of 17 resort military personnel to lose their life in Vietnam.

A planned protest by a radical Topeka, Kan., church, which calls military funerals God's revenge against America for tolerating gays and lesbians, fizzled when midwestern snowstorms blocked their travel.

Expecting conflict between the protesters and angry funeralgoers, area law enforcement had taken no chances. Atlantic City police set aside a small barricaded area for the church at Florida Avenue. It also blocked off four blocks of Atlantic Avenue between Florida and Brighton avenues and closed side streets near the California Avenue funeral site.

Dozens of area police and county sheriff's officers were stationed on duty in Atlantic City, along the procession's route and at the cemetery.

In western Atlantic County, State Police shut down a 3-mile stretch of Route 50 between 11th Avenue and Tuckahoe Road from 1:30 to 3 p.m. and the county closed its Veterans Cemetery in Estell Manor throughout the day to almost all but mourners.

Galloway Township Vietnam veteran Joseph J. Cavallaro, who heads Northfield's Disabled American Veterans chapter, said it was an overreaction to shut out hundreds who wanted to attend.

He blamed “nonveterans (who) do not understand the tight-knit bond between military veterans. We're brothers and sisters and it hurts us a lot when we are not able to bury our honored war dead.”

Outside Star of the Sea before the service, Charles and Stephanie Newman waited in their denim and leather heavily festooned with military-themed patches and pins. Like many in the veterans-oriented group, the members of Firebase Nam said they came to pay respects to a person they called a hero.

“Besides, we have six sons between us and every one of them could be here,” said Stephanie Newman, who wore a belt made from a metal drive belt with a scorpion buckle.

Aura Osorno was one of several Local 54 of UNITE HERE members handing out 1,000 small flags to people going inside the church. They said it was a great honor and also came on behalf of Rivera's mother, Cayetana Palacios, a union member who works at Caesars Atlantic City.

The people inside the church were a diverse cross section of the resort that included area leaders, gray-haired veterans and casino employees, several of whom arrived in uniform after their shift.

They slowly filed past the open coffin between two white-gloved Army sergeants standing at parade rest. Rivera, 21, lay amid a wooden crucifix and a heart made of white flowers. Many hugged Rivera's brother, cousins or mother, who stood nearby in a dark coat with a large picture button of her son pinned over her heart.

Church leaders held the service for Rivera, whose family is from El Salvador, in Spanish and English. Atlantic City Mayor Bob Levy, a decorated 20-year Army veteran, read and gave the family a city proclamation and a letter from Gov. Jon S. Corzine.

At about 12:30 p.m., a lone bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.” As he finished, a dozen other bagpipers previously unseen in the choir loft joined in, filling the church with the swelling, powerful sound.

As if by an unspoken command, first one, then two, then dozens of attendees raised and waved their American flags.

The bagpipers filed out the door, the sound diminishing in the distance, leaving a silence broken only by tearful sniffles.

In Mays Landing, more than 100 people gathered in an impromptu tribute to Rivera, whom almost none had ever met, in front of the Atlantic County office building on Main Street.

As volunteer firefighters directed traffic, organizer Aline Dix handed out flags and updated the crowd as the procession drew closer.

Billy Fursin, 14, said he was riding bikes with four friends when organizers gave them flags and asked they attend.

When the procession passed by at about 1:47 p.m., they stood on street with their bikes and waved the flags, trying to get the passing firetrucks to blow their horn. Veterans standing nearby quietly saluted. Nine minutes and 127 cars later, the group broke up. “That was really, really something,” said Bruno Scittolon, shaking his head as he walked away with his wife, Pat.

At the veterans cemetery, motorcycling veterans groups lined both sides of the road for about a quarter-mile from the county park's entrance. Their rumbling engines could be faintly heard from the graveside as church leaders led the several hundred people in the Lord's Prayer in Spanish and English.

After the honor guard placed Rivera's casket on top of the grave, the six-member group held the covering American flag aloft while seven other soldiers fired a three-volley salute to Rivera.

As the gun smoke hit the attendees, another soldier played “Taps” from a bugle, while a bagpipe and drum band played “Amazing Grace.”

The soldiers holding the flag then stiffly and silently folded it into a triangle and gave it to Brig. Gen. Kevin R. Wendel, who leaned over and presented it, along with a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, to Palacios.

Receiving these final remnants of her young son's life, she audibly sobbed.

When the formal service ended, friends and well-wishers surrounded the family while others in attendance layered red roses and white carnations about a foot thick on top of Rivera's closed casket.

For the hundreds of people over the last two weeks who never met him, Eric Rivera became a symbol for their beliefs. To some, he was the wrath of an angry God. To others, Rivera was just like someone they knew, a young adult full of youth, promise and optimism, a person killed in a foreign country.

But to those who were there at the end, to those who consoled the family while Saturday afternoon's shadows grew, Rivera was a person they knew.

For them, however sad, Eric Rivera had finally come home.

From AC Press

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