Kent Carrigan
September 1 & 2, 2008

This is a completed mission report for the two part mission to honor Kent Carrigan at the visitation and funeral services on September 1 and 2, 2008 as requested by the family.

Kent was 65 years old and died after a long sickness. Kent served 4 years in the Navy during the Cuban missal crisis and the Vietnam war and the Kent served in the National Guard since for 38 years. He is survived by his wife and children.

September 1, 2008:

We staged for the mission on Monday, September 1 at 3 pm with some members showing up from several other sectors. We had a total of 7 bikes and 12 members for the flag line. We staged, did a short briefing and welcomed new members in the parking lot and then left for the short drive to the funeral home where we set up the flag line before the family arrived.

All went well and the family was so grateful. They came out to thank all the members personally. They also requested that the PGR members present come in at the end of the service to pay respects to Kent. The funeral director was so impressed with the flag line that he called his wife from home to come in and take photographs. A nice tribute to our members. We debriefed after the service at the Little Falls VFW and all members showed up.

September 2, 2008:

We staged at the Canteen outside the gate of Camp Ripley in the steady rain that was falling all morning. We had 6 bikes and 14 members for the flag line to honor Kent at the funeral service.We staged, did a short briefing and welcomed new members in the parking lot and then left for the short drive to the funeral service at the Chapel at Camp Ripley. We were asked to park the bikes in the front of the chapel and the cages in the parking lot.

We arrived early and spaced out the flag line on either side of the two main entrance sidewalks.

Many people thanked us for being there and several times I heard the word awesome in describing the flagline. We did hear from some of those paying respects about what a great person Kent was. He was a hero to many and to us. Some of the people who showed up to honor Kent were soldiers from Camp Ripley.

We stood down after all people entered the Chapel and we did a short briefing to adapt to changes made by the people in charge. They wanted to make sure all of our members signed the register. Members who were to leave to do the flag line for the arrival of the family and the escort at the Cemetary building left at that point.

Just before the end of the Chapel service the escort members reformed the flag line and were in place when the honor guard, Casket and family came out. After that we tore down quickly, got to our bikes and did the escort to the cemetary. We joined the flag line already set up by our members and then reformed again behind the honor guard during the service. We had the flag line in place when the family came out.

The family and funeral director insisted that we attend the lunch even though I thought I had actually turned them down so we asked our flag line members to attend the lunch if they wanted to.

This was one wet mission and it all went off very effectively. I was more proud of our members than ever for their unselfishness, dedication and flexibility to try to lighten the burden of grief on this family in this bad weather day. One member would log almost 500 miles in the rain to make this mission successful.

Jim Parent Brainerd Sector ARC