A soldier’s sendoff

As Carvill’s funeral cortege pulled away from St Joseph’s after the Funeral Mass on Saturday, a police escort of eight Harley Davidson-mounted riders led the way to his military burial at Fort Dix.
“They’ll close the roads all the way to Dix for our Frank,” a mourner said, nodding at the Harleys.
It was a final honor that perhaps Carvill in life would have refused. Family, friends and colleagues stood outside the church in the bright summer sunlight and remembered “a quiet leader,” a “most unassuming, unselfish” man whose service and generosity was most often behind the scenes.
Armagh Society President Mae O’Driscoll remembered Carvill’s work with the Irish Immigration Reform Movement in the later 1980s, one very practical manifestation of the man’s work.
“There are thousands of Irish people, recipients of Morrison visas, who benefited from his tireless lobbying,” she said.
Carvill, 51, a stalwart of the Irish community in New York and New Jersey, an advocate for Irish immigration rights and a tireless campaigner for a just peace in Northern Ireland, and a lifelong member of the Armagh and Cork associations, was killed while on active service with the New Jersey Army National Guard. Another Irish-American guardsman, Specialist Christopher Duffy, from Brick Township, N.J., was also killed in a bombing attack that took place in the Baghdad slum known as Sadr City. Two other New Jersey guardsmen were killed the same weekend.
“There is almost always something missing in what people tell us about Frank,” Fr. Francis Gunn of St Joseph’s Parish said in his homily. “When he wasn’t around, all kinds of things would not get done.”
Gunn told of Carvill’s passion for his Irish heritage, “not simply nostalgia, but countless hours of service for the Irish Immigration Apostolate, Project Children and Kruise for Kids.”
“If Frank was an Irishman in heart and deed, he was an American patriot who took his pledge of allegiance to a higher level than most,” Gunn said.
When Carvill was killed, he was already slated to be on leave back home but had missed his return trip due to an administrative error. After Fr. Gunn’s homily, Carvill’s battery commander, Capt. Tom Rughneen, delivered a eulogy, at times his voice full of emotion, for a man he said was “a soldier’s soldier.” At the rear of the church, uniformed colleagues of Carvill stood to attention and listened to Rughneen’s tribute, many shedding tears.
“He was a soldier like soldiers before, tireless, dedicated and committed,” Rughneen said. “When you asked for volunteers, his hand was always the first to go up.”
In his imagination, Rughneen said, he could see the iconic Carvill in freezing fields around Morristown with General Washington, or with the Irish brigade at Gettysburg, or coming ashore at Normandy.
He drew laughs from the mourners when he speculated about Carvill’s passing appearing in newspapers alongside reports of President Ronald Reagan’s death and funeral.
“I don’t know what Frank’s politics were, but I hope he doesn’t mind being in the papers alongside President Reagan. I think the president is worthy of such an honor.”
And he told mourners that Carvill’s sacrifice in Iraq “was not in vain.”
“The vast majority of Iraqis understand what our soldiers do and for what Frank died. Future generations will thank Frank for his sacrifice.”
Carvill’s sister, Peggy Carvill-Liguori and brother-in-law Joseph Liguori gave final words of remembrance, recalling Carvill at countless Irish-American events, always, his sister said, seeming to be the guy who carried the banner.
Then the Armagh Pipers Band stood to attention outside St. Joseph’s Parish Church and played a muted farewell as Carvill’s coffin was carried to the waiting hearse. At his request, Carvill was buried with full military honors at Fort Dix.