Today is your service and my heart is heavy and my breathing is short as I have a few tears and I smile and remember the friendship which we shared albeit much too short. Thank you for sharing what you did and allowing me to know the man which you were. It was my good fortune to know such a man from a place we both loved... Bandon. I find some comfort in knowing you will be laid to rest near my mother and father knowing that when I visit them I will be able to do the same for you. I find comfort knowing you are standing guard over them as well. I find that quite fitting.
I don't have anything but this final poem to offer you today. It is a poem I found some years ago that reminded me of my father and his love of flying a passion I know you shared as well. Godspeed my friend.
High Flight
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds--and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of--wheeled and soared and swung
High in sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never a lark, or even eagle flew
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sancity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Pilot Officer John Macgee, Jr
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