Marching to the beat of a somber drummer, dozens of uniformed personnel and others paid tribute to fallen Detroit firefighters Monday in the annual memorial service in Elmwood Cemetery.
Active and retired firefighters, family members and a contingent of Windsor fire personnel filed from the engine house at E. Lafayette and Mt. Elliott to the neighboring graveyard, Detroit's oldest, which features a section of firefighters' graves. The parade was led by the restored 1937 rig that now serves as a hearse.
In brief speeches in the cemetery, speakers talked of the sacrifices of both the deceased firefighters and those they leave behind. The recent graves are mainly those of firefighters who died natural deaths after having retired, but family members and friends gathered at the gravestone of Walt Harris, who died while battling a 2008 fire in an abandoned house that had been torched for profit.
Firefighters "often are nameless and faceless to the citizens they serve," noted Executive Fire Commissioner Donald Austin.
Fire officials placed wreaths at the grave site, presented red carnations to firefighters' widows and heard the chiming of a silver bell during the reading of names of retired firefighters who died since Memorial Day 2012. The fire department band played a number of selections, and a trumpeter sounded "Taps."
Watching over the firefighters' section is the figure of a 19th Century fireman at the top of a tall stone column, which carries the words, "After life's turmoil peacefully sleep."
