Farewell to a patriot

A breeze stirred, sending a halyard against a flag pole

with a muffled clanging. The Stars and Stripes furled and unfurled halfway up.

At Calverton National Cemetery, in the leaden summer air, it was the only

sound. The mourners stood in silence, waiting as the coffin bearing the body of

Navy Lt. Michael P. Murphy was eased from a hearse.

Yesterday, a crowd - friends and family, fellow soldiers, long-time

neighbors and well wishers - paused to say goodbye to Murphy, 29, a Patchogue

native killed after his unit was involved in a June 28 firefight in Afghanistan.

At his funeral more than 900 people crammed into Patchogue's Our Lady of

Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Church. He was described as an amiable

perfectionist, so driven that he would do chin-ups while wearing heavy body

armor. He was also remembered as so dedicated to his fiancee, Heather Duggan,

that he reserved an hour each day to telephone her.

"That is what drove him," said Tony Viggiano, a family friend, pointing to

his heart. "There isn't anything he set out to do since I knew him that he

didn't accomplish."

Murphy had been a member of the elite Navy commando unit known as the

SEALs. He was a member of a four-man patrol that had been injected into a

remote area of Afghanistan's eastern mountains to secretly monitor insurgent

movements there. On June 28, insurgents discovered the patrol, killing three. A

fourth SEAL, though wounded, escaped into the darkness of a steady rain and

was rescued by an Afghan villager.

Several of Murphy's fellow Navy SEALs attended the funeral, wearing the

distinctive Navy SEAL insignia, which includes an eagle whose head is bowed in

respect for the unit's dead. Later, they would remove the insignia and place

them on Murphy's coffin.

In the church, Murphy's father, Daniel, spoke of Murphy as an extraordinary

son, brother and friend. He said he and his wife, Maureen, were proud to have

had him as a son for the short years they had together.

Daniel Murphy, a Vietnam veteran, said he planned to bury his son with the

Purple Heart medal he had earned for a leg wound that hospitalized him during

the Vietnam War. His son was also awarded a Purple Heart, in addition to the

prestigious Silver Star.

He said because the exact date of his son's death remains undetermined, his

son's tombstone will list it as the Fourth of July. That was the day his son's

body was found.

"It was always his favorite holiday," Daniel Murphy told a reporter last

week. "When he was little, he would ask me, 'Daddy, take me to see boom boom in

the sky.'"

At a brief military ceremony at the cemetery in Calverton following the

funeral, Daniel and Maureen Murphy stood among the mourners.

A squad of marksmen shattered the silence, firing three volleys into the

sky.

Then, three of the spent shell casings were gathered up, tucked into a

folded flag, and handed to his mother.

She clutched it tightly to her breast.