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On a steamy Saturday morning almost four years after the Sept. 11 tragedy, about a thousand of New York's bravest turned out to say goodbye once again to one of their own who died that day.
Firefighter Keithroy M. Maynard, 30, of Engine Company 33 in Manhattan, was one of 343 firefighters killed in the attacks. A memorial had been held for him in November 2001, but his family had held off on a funeral until DNA testing was completed in February and all of his remains identified.
Maynard was one of seven members of Engine Company 33 killed on Sept. 11.
The firefighters lined Morningside Avenue in Manhattan in front of Church of the Master to say goodbye to their fallen comrade, who had been a member of the department for two years.
As the caisson carrying Maynard's flag-draped coffin made its way to the church, the Fire Department's Emerald Society played "Amazing Grace," which soon gave way to just a drumbeat.
During the service, Maynard was remembered as a passionate, outspoken, funny man who loved his job as a firefighter and who planned to ascend the ranks even beyond his deceased father Reynold White's captain status.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who attended the service before he officiated at his daughter's wedding, said he hoped the family gained some comfort in the fact that Maynard died doing what he loved. He also said it was the courageous acts of people like Maynard that made his daughter's wedding possible.
"Because of [Keithroy], my daughter is safe," Bloomberg said. "My daughter is able to have a wedding."
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta also attended the service. Maynard's twin brother, Kevin Maynard, who became a firefighter in Houston in honor of his brother after Sept. 11; another brother, Duane White, a New York City police officer; and his eldest brother, Vernon Maynard, a city sanitation worker, also were there.
After the service, Maynard's brown metal coffin was placed back on the caisson, "Taps" was played, and a single NYPD helicopter flew over in his honor.
Maynard's mother, Pearl, clutched three flowers as she said tearfully that she was glad to have some closure.
"I'm so happy they have closed the investigation and they have brought as much as they can of my child," she said. "I am so happy."
Sharon Cole, Maynard's partner, seemed to agree.
"To have him, his remains, that is a comfort. We don't have to think we might walk into him," she said.
"It is really a closure. Especially for my son, that he knows that daddy will never be around again," she said of their son Keithroy II, who was 6 at the time of his father's death.
Maynard is to be buried in his native Montserrat, a small island in the Caribbean.
Firefighter Mourned 4 Years After 9/11
By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK -- A 30-year-old firefighter who rushed to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, was memorialized Saturday at a Manhattan church in one of the last funerals for the 343 firefighters killed that day.
Hundreds of uniformed firefighters stood under an unforgiving June sun as an engine draped in black and purple bunting carried Keithroy M. Maynard's remains to the Church of the Master. A pipe and drum corps played "Amazing Grace."
Like other relatives of Sept. 11 victims, Maynard's family held a memorial service two months after the attacks, but years more passed before his family felt that enough of his remains had been identified to hold a formal funeral, officials said.
The ceremony Saturday was the first funeral since 2003 for a firefighter killed at the World Trade Center.
It was prompted, in part, by a decision by city forensic investigators in February to end their efforts to identify remains collected from the Twin Towers rubble. More than 1,100 victims remain unidentified, but officials concluded they had exhausted all current DNA technology.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, attending the funeral on his daughter's wedding day, was among the mourners who honored Maynard as a hero whose final gift to the city hasn't faded with time.
"If there is any comfort to be taken," Bloomberg said to Maynard's mother, "perhaps it is that your son died doing what he loved."
Maynard had been a firefighter for two years. His late father, Reynold White, was a New York City fire captain. His twin brother, Kevin Maynard, became a firefighter in Houston after his brother's death. Another brother, Duane White, is a New York police officer.
"I carry his shield in my pocket," White said. "He was one of the best people this city has ever had."
Maynard is also survived by his mother, another brother, two sisters and a 10-year-old son, Keithroy Maynard II, who was 6 when his father died.
Maynard, a naturalized U.S. citizen, will be buried in Montserrat, a Caribbean island where he lived until he was 15.
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