Hundreds honor fallen Ranger

NEWBURYPORT -- From Green Street to the Belleville Cemetery, for more than 2 miles, hundreds of Newburyport residents lined Main Street yesterday, clutching American flags and their hearts to say goodbye to First Lieutenant Derek S. Hines, a 25-year-old Army Ranger shot to death last week during a firefight in Afghanistan.

Contractors, schoolchildren, and mothers with infants along the funeral route, staying well past the procession in silent respect as the hearse headed into the cemetery under an American flag suspended between firetruck ladders.

''I had to be here," said one woman, holding one of thousands of flags given out by the town. ''He's one of us. He is us."

The throngs that lined the route and attended the overflow funeral Mass in Immaculate Conception Church were there to remember Hines but also to support his parents and three siblings. In addition, hundreds of State Police attended the Mass and burial in support of Hines's father, State Police Sergeant Steven Hines, who told the gathering, ''This is not supposed to be how it ends."

With Governor Mitt Romney and other dignitaries in the audience, Derek Hines was remembered for his competitiveness and compassion; the mittens he bought for his sister, Ashley, every Christmas; and the way his two younger brothers, Michael and Trevor, idolized him.

Steven Hines eulogized his son during the service in the humble brick church, relaying stories Derek told in letters or over the phone of 50-mile hikes in two days in Afghanistan's high mountains seeking hidden enemies among the rock.

He survived a 50-minute firefight once, with Derek and two others surrounded by insurgents. Two weeks ago, four men in his company were killed when a roadside explosive went off next to their Humvee. ''One of the soldiers was critically injured," Steven Hines said. ''Derek's only concern was whether we knew anyone in Washington who could visit him because his parents couldn't afford a plane ticket."

After graduating from West Point, he was assigned to the 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment in Italy, knowing that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he would probably be going to war. His father said he could have transferred from West Point before his junior year without owing the military any time. But ''Derek wouldn't have it any other way," his father said.

He was deployed to Afghanistan in March, where he helped reconstruct buildings in one of the most dangerous provinces in the country. He would talk or write to his family as often as he could, at first telling both his father and mother, Susan, little about the firefights, which were increasing in severity almost daily.

His father said that after going online and reading about the conflicts, he finally confronted his son on the phone about what he was truly facing, and Derek agreed to tell him. ''Just don't tell Mom," he said.

Hines is the 10th Massachusetts resident killed in Afghanistan as of Aug. 27, according to the Defense Department.

''Derek Hines was a believer," his commanding officer in Afghanistan wrote in a letter to his family that was read to the mourners. ''There should be no doubt -- absolutely no doubt -- that Derek believed in what he was doing."

Hines went to school in Newburyport and graduated in 1999 from St. John's Preparatory School in Danvers, playing lacrosse and hockey. His father remembers him as a child with an amazing penchant for falling down and cutting his head. He was an altar boy who always rang the bells at the wrong time or spilled the wine during Mass with his friend, Ed Hill, who said Hines always wanted to carry the cross during the processional. The Rev. Mark Piche remembered that Hines joined the French Club, not for the language, but for the food.

On the first day they met in first grade, Hill and Hines were separated for disturbing the class. Hill knew then that they would become fast friends. ''We had more fun times together than I can possibly recall," he said.

His father recalled that Derek, at 18, wanted to get a tattoo, and he jokingly said he might get one, too. ''I was able to put it off for a few months, but he called my bluff," said Steven Hines. ''He was so proud of that little 'H' on his calf. If I knew it was going to make him that happy, I would have done it a lot sooner, and I'm glad I did it with him."

After the funeral, students from St. John's Prep lined the funeral route, wearing buttons bearing Hines's jersey number, 23, on their lapels. Across the street were students from Immaculate Conception School, who held up letters that spelled ''Thank You Derek" as the somber procession drove by.