Thursday, 4:30 PM
Harris comes home a heroine
By Steven Rosenberg, GLOBE STAFF
SWAMPSCOTT - Blue lights from the police cruisers flashed as the 14-car procession, which included a black hearse, turned slowly onto Elwin Street. Marine Captain Jennifer J. Harris had been scheduled to return from her third tour of Iraq on Wednesday. Her homecoming was a day later and infinitely sadder than planned.
Harris, 28, was killed Feb. 7 along with six other service members after insurgents shot down the helicopter she was piloting in Anbar Province, Iraq. She was the first servicewoman from Massachusetts to die in combat in the Iraq war.
The procession, which started at Hanscom Field in Bedford, stopped in front of the modest green Cape Cod style home where Harris’s parents live. Several neighbors, their faces etched with mourning, looked on in the frigid weather. Some held American flags, others offered salutes.
Then, Raymond Harris walked from a nearby limousine that was part of the procession to the back of the hearse. Once there, he opened the door and stood silently, looking at his daughter’s flag-covered casket. A minute later, he gently closed the door and returned to the limo and the procession departed.
The Marine captain’s neighbors were still trying to sort out their feelings.
"This is so sad, it’s unbelievable," said Jimmy Connors, who played sports with Harris as a child. "I remember her parents used to pick her up at the airport when she’d come home; and now she’s coming home this way."
Connors had spent the morning buying as many small American flags as he could. An hour before Harris made her final trip down Elwin Street. Connors and other neighbors placed the flags in snow banks throughout the neighborhood.
A neighbor, Julie Faulkner, stood with her children, Mackenzie, 9, and Liam, 7. Faulkner pulled her children from school early so they could honor Harris when she returned. The three clutched American flags.
Faulkner said she would tell her children that Harris did a great job for the country. "I’ll remember her with great dignity, pride, and love of her country, and love of her family," she said.
Andrew Roland, who lives two doors away, went to school with Harris, and also served in the Marines. He called his friend, a National Honor Society member who was ranked fifth in her 1996 Swampscott High School graduating class, brilliant. "As an officer, she could basically write her own ticket, and she volunteered to go over there. She was very brave," Roland said of the Naval Academy graduate.
Throughout the day, neighbors slowed to a crawl in front of the Harris home, located less than a quarter mile from the childhood home of former US Army specialist Jared J. Raymond, 20, who was killed Iraq in September after a bomb blew up near his tank.
"It’s pretty devastating," said Mimi Riccio, who slowed her car near the Harris house. "It’s the second one in town and you think, 'God, how many more will happen?'"
Inside the car, her husband, Ed Riccio, shook his head and said the neighborhood was devastated. "There’s a price for freedom, and she helped us pay the price," he said.
At the high school, band director Ed Jack stared at three photographs of his former student, who played the flute flout and also served as drum major during football season. "She’s someone who showed the best for this town, this high school, and this country, and in my mind, she’s a hero," he said.
Funeral services for Harris will be held Monday, Feb. 19 at 11 a.m. at St. John the Evangelist Church on Humphrey Street. Harris will be buried in Swampscott Cemetery.
