THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 30, 1994 TAG: 9409300550
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
On a hillside here Thursday, amid the remains of generations sacrificed before him, family, friends and the Navy said their last goodbyes to Lt. Cmdr. Karl Scott ``Biff'' Belcyzk, 32, of Virginia Beach.
As drummers beat out their haunting march - ``BUMP. . . BUMP. . . BUMP-BUMP-BUMP,''a flag-draped caisson bore the aviator's empty coffin past the mast of the battleship Maine to a shady spot designated for his final memorial.
``Today, I know Biff is deeply missed, deeply loved, deeply grieved,'' Cmdr. Frank Klapach, Arlington's Navy chaplain, told the 80 or so mourners.
Belcyzk and his radar officer, Lt. j.g. Marcus Pletcher, 25, died two weeks ago when their F-14 Tomcat collided with another plane and then plunged into the Atlantic about 40 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras. The men, assigned to the aircraft carrier Eisenhower, were preparing for a deployment. .
Such unexpected, often violent death is all too much a fixture of military life, and so perhaps it's no surprise that the services are good at the grim business of saying farewell.
Still, there is something almost breathtaking in the dignity of a funeral at Arlington, on land once owned by Robert E. Lee and amid the heroes of places like Valley Forge, Chancellorsville, Iwo Jima.
Belcyzk's honor guard, in whites so bright they seemed somehow beyond white, precisely unfurled a flag as the mourners took their places at the graveside, then stood at attention through the service. At a one-word signal, seven riflemen just down the hill fired off three sharp volleys - POW! POW! POW!
Sprinkled through the crowd were a dozen or more of Belcyzk's fellow aviators, strong young men who know the danger of the lives they've chosen; their shoulders heaved with grief, they draped their arms around wives, mothers, each other.
The loss is profound, irreplaceable. ``But all this,'' the chaplain reminded them, ``is far better than to have never known him at all.''
Then the band played ``America the Beautiful,'' and overhead there was a roar. Four F-14s appeared, almost close enough to touch and somehow flying more slowly than one imagines such sleek machines could ever fly.
When they were directly over the mourners, the lead plane streaked straight up, its afterburners aglow, then rolled over and disappeared. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
Stacy Goforth, fiancee of Lt. Cmdr. Karl Scott Belcyzk, receives the
flag Thursday that was draped on his coffin.
by CNB