A few tiny flakes of snow have just started to merge with heavy rain as he joins the crowd in the vestibule of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Malvern. The congregation is mostly gray and white haired; women in dresses or skirts, men in dark suits or blazers and gray pants. Sprinkled about are younger men in perfectly pressed Army and Marine uniforms, as well as a few teenagers, smaller kids and two babies. It is a family event.
They are there to celebrate a life filled with more public service than anyone he’s ever known. They greet one another with subdued voices and an occasional hug. As they walk into the nave, a large sculpture of Jesus hanging from the ceiling beckons them, arms outstretched. Wooden pews radiate out from the alter. A piano plays gently.
He finds a seat in the very last row, because this is one of very few times he has ever been to a Catholic church, because he knows very few people here, because there is no-one else in the pew, because this is a funeral for a longtime friend and he isn’t sure how he will react.
Patrick Joseph McGuigan, Jr died a couple of weeks short of reaching 91. “I’m ready,” he had said to his friend a few weeks earlier. His body was giving out and he was tired.
The service is filled with liturgy somewhat mysterious to his friend, but familiar and comforting to Pat’s family and other friends. Pat’s oldest son, Frank, offers words about a father no words can describe. Pat’s grandchildren read passages from the Bible. His wife, Margaret, sits with their daughter and family members, wilted, but absorbing it all.
“I fought in two wars and a police action” was how Pat first described his 30 year Army career to his friend.
It began as a 17 year old “Boot” in 1951 and included tours in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Germany, Italy, as well as the United States. He told his friend about falling out of a helicopter in Viet Nam and breaking his back. He spoke with pride about the soldiers he had trained and led on the path to becoming a Command Sergeant Major, the highest non-commissioned rank in the Army. What he didn’t mention were the 28 medals he earned along the way.
(Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm, Meritorious Service Medal (four times), Army Commendation Medal (three times), Good Conduct Medal (eight times), National Defense Service Medal (twice), Vietnam Service Medal with two campaign stars, Vietnam Campaign Medal, Korean Service Medal, Meritorious Unit Citation, Army Service Medal, Overseas Service Ribbon with three service stars, and the Overseas Combat Bar, twice).
In 1981, he retired from the Army and joined The Valley Forge Military Academy as Special Assistant to the Superintendent where he also taught military and leadership skills. (While they were still in Germany packing up, a family member found a house in the fraying Borough of Malvern, which he and Margaret bought sight unseen).
The next year he joined the Borough government, first serving on Committees, later working his way up President of the Council.
He proudly described the town to newcomers as “4 churches and 1 bar”.
In 1986, he initiated a multi-year rebuild of the bridge over train tracks that connected two the sides of town. In 1989 he persuaded the merchants to upgrade their storefronts, the National Bank of Malvern to loan them the money for the upgrades, and the Borough Council to pay the interest on the loans.
He retired from the Council in 1989.
In 1991, two things happened. He retired again, this time from the Valley Forge Military Academy and Malvern’s manager resigned after placing the town on the edge of bankruptcy.
The town elders came to him, hat in hand. He took the job of Manager. His first move was to announce a hold on all spending while he studied the terrain. A few mornings after he started, the Police Chief dropped by with a bill for new tires he’d bought for the police car. Pat thanked him for his contribution.
Two years later the Borough was in the black and debts were paid. Within five years he had sold Malvern’s aging water system to Aqua for five million dollars, several times its assessed value. He also added sidewalks to peripheral neighborhoods and new street lights through the center of town.
“Malvern just needed to be brought into the 20th Century”, he said.
But he wasn’t done.
In the late 1990’s, Malvern Preparatory School decided to sell the Paoli Battlefield, the 40 acre Revolutionary War site of the Paoli Massacre that bordered the south side of town. The price: $2.5 million. Knowing developers would bulldoze irreplaceable history as well as the graves of some of the country’s original soldiers, Pat set out to find the money.
“There are American soldiers there”, he said to his friend. “I’ve looked out for American soldiers all my life. I’m not about to stop now.”
Three years later the US Congress, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the County of Chester and Malvern’s 3000 citizens, paid Malvern Prep $2.6 million (including an extra $100,000 the school tacked on at the last minute). And, to make sure the site would never be threatened again, Pat persuaded the US Congress to attach it to Valley Forge National Historical Park.
In 1999 he retired for the fourth time, this one a keeper.
They follow the coffin out of the sanctuary, through the nave and into the vestibule lined with photos of Pat, where soldiers drape it with an American flag.
“A smart, giving, courageous guy, with more integrity than most people today”, his friend muses. Similar thoughts are refected on the faces around him.
Two Army sergeants silently fold the flag in crisp, measured movements. One officially presents it to Margaret with a few words only for her. An Army bugler plays the sweetest version of taps the friend has ever heard. Pall bearers cary the coffin to a hearse bound for Arlington, his final resting place.
“And I – no-one – will ever see him again”, his friend thinks as he leaves the Church and heads home, melancholy slowing his walk. , “ever…”. He remembers the loss of other friends. They had all just…left.
Then suddenly, “Get over it!” he says harshly to himself. “He’s gone, just like all dead people. That’s life!”
The snow has replaced the rain, turning the town black and white like an old movie set. He ambles slowly past the bridge, a few storefronts… He stops by a streetlight and looks around.
“Wait a minute”, he thinks. “He’s not gone. He’s right here. The streetlights, the bridge, the storefronts, the sidewalks, the Battlefield…”
He starts walking again, briskly.
“This snow is so beautiful!” he thinks. “That was a really impressive service. What a great town! I am one lucky guy…”