Solemn Salutes to Fallen Heroes

By Bart Jones and Indrani Sen | STAFF WRITERS

September 21, 2001

Behind the police barriers blocking off the funeral of firefighter Lawrence Virgilio in Woodside, a small girl stood yesterday afternoon with a very urgent question.

"Excuse me," Jane Kim, 7, of Woodside, yelled at the mourning firefighters milling around outside St. Sebastian Church, her words almost drowned by the din of the 7 train clattering above Roosevelt Avenue.

"Excuse me," she repeated insistently, tapping the leg of firefighter John Westfield.

"Why did this thing happen?"

Westfield looked bewildered for a moment.

"We don't know," he replied. "I don't think any of us knows."

"But it's so sad that the fireman had to die," Jane persisted. "This is terrible."

There were tears in Westfield's eyes as he ruffled her hair and walked away.

"I don't have an answer," he murmured.

The pews were filled for the funeral of Virgilio, 38, who died in the attack on the World Trade Center. More than 300 other firefighters are missing.

As he was memorialized in the church he was baptized in, the 12-year-veteran of the force was remembered by his friends and family as a man who loved deeply and lived life to the fullest.

"Nobody could ever say a bad thing about Larry," said Michael Ingebrethsen, who grew up with Virgilio in Woodside. "He always wanted to be a firefighter."

Among the speakers at the funeral was Queens Borough President Claire Shulman.

Bagpipers greeted the funeral party with "Amazing Grace," and accompanied the convoy of limousines as they left the church with "Going Home" and "Wilt Ye No Come Back Again."

Meanwhile, in Sayville, firefighters and police officers lined Main Street three and four deep for a quarter-mile outside St. Lawrence the Martyr Church for the funeral procession of Richard A. Prunty, a chief in one of the first battalions to respond to the World Trade Center attack.

Prunty, 57, of the Second Battalion in Manhattan, lived in Sayville with his wife, Susan. He also is survived by two grown children, Lisa and Christopher.

"We are here today because of a great evil," Msgr. John Rowan told hundreds of mourners gathered for the funeral Mass. He said the terrorist hijackers seek to "divide us" and "break our hope in the future."

Prunty's heroism in responding to the disaster and trying to save the lives of others was "an act of noble generosity," Rowan said.

Also laid to rest yesterday were firefighter William Henry, 51, of Springfield Gardens; firefighter Eric Allen, 44, of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn; firefighter Manuel Mojica, 30, of Bellmore; and Capt. Martin Egan, 36, of Staten Island.