TOO YOUNG - WHY DAD WON'T BE HOME
15.06.1996
KEYWORD-HIT
Too young to know why dad won't be home.
IS that dad's hat?
Three-year-old Benjamin Berrigan was too young to understand
why his mother, Anna, and so many people were crying yesterday.
He was too young to understand why his father, Aviation Regiment Captain John Berrigan, 27, of Townsville, won't be coming home again.
But when he walked across to touch the sky-blue beret crowning one of the 18 rifles bayoneted into the ground, it brought home the depth of Wednesday's tragedy.
The several thousand mourners were not only farewelling 18 of Australia's finest airmen and soldiers, they were farewelling family men _ fathers, husbands, sons, brothers and friends.
Above all they were saying goodbye to men who trained hard to be the best so little blokes like Benjamin have a free and happy country in which to grow.
Several thousand people, including more than 1000 soldiers in uniform, said thank you to the men at a moving memorial service at Lavarack Barracks yesterday.
Military people have a way of making sombre occasions ever so much more powerful.
The march of unseen feet on the bitumen road at the beginning of the Anzac Day dawn service in Brisbane is one unforgettable experience.
But nothing could compare with the poignancy of the moment which concluded yesterday's service _ the young soldier captivating the moment with the haunting strains of the Last Post; the lone piper marching across the parade ground to the flagpole, coaxing those mournful yet stirring sounds that only a bagpipe produces.
And as another soldier lowered the Australian flag then raised it to fly at half mast, two Blackhawks flew overhead, a symbol of the aircraft lost.
Widows, children, and family members were invited to lay wreaths at the memorial.
They did so _ in the semi-circle marked out by 18 Steyr F88 rifles.
(Pic caption) A SOLDIER comforts Anna Berrigan as her son, Benjamin, looks over one of the symbolic rifles at yesterday's memorial service. Her husband, Captain John Berrigan, died in Wednesday's tragedy. Picture: DAVID
CROSLING
A soldier's beret _ 15 sandy-coloured and three sky-blue _ adorned each rifle. They symbolised the lives lost _ 15 from the Special Air Service Regiment and three from Townsville's 5th Aviation Regiment.
Survivors who could physically get to the service, did so. Three arrived by ambulance. One had his face and eyes bandaged, another was limping and bent, and the third so obviously injured it made you wince to watch his efforts to walk.
The prayers had special significance to them _ they had been
through it and come away alive.
Among the survivors was Captain David Burke.
Minutes after the memorial service for his 18 mates, this
remarkable man was able to address a packed press contingent.
He's shortish, very strongly built, and has the military carriage and demeanour of a leader.
Typically, his main message was a tribute to his crew, his soldier mates, the rescue organisers - anybody but himself.
His only self-mention was even a tribute to others _ saying he was not a hero, but merely a product of his training.
It takes a special kind of man who can, minutes after a most moving memorial service, stand in front of a media throng and tell it as it was.
And this _ just 41 hours after the incident in which he was plucked from the burning wreck of the Blackhawk.
The fact that Captain Burke spoke publicly at all was in itself another selfless action.
He did so in an effort to get the real story across _ and on the pre-condition that the families of those killed and injured at Fire Support Base Barbara not be disturbed in their grief.
And little Benjamin Berrigan?
He will take some time to understand. But perhaps he'll grow to wear his own blue or sandy beret. His dad would like that.
And while the Australian military has men like Captain Burke to set the example, Army children like Benjamin will always have something to aspire to.
