The CBS News local affiliate, KEYE News, covered our friend Chuck Burt’s funeral today (I left the service a few minutes early and was interviewed for the story by the KEYE reporter).
One of our local PGR Ride Captains, Mark Wells, was asked to speak on behalf of the Patriot Guard Riders today — and he read this note that I wrote on Chuck’s mission thread:
This news broke my heart today.
I remember vividly the first time I ever met Chuck. It was my first PGR mission for PFC Tina Priest. We met at the Denny’s near the airport.
Chuck was the first person I met and he invited me to sit with him at his table. He even bought me a cup of coffee.
I had the honor and privilige to ride with and along side Chuck many times after that. He was a gentle and kind man — and a man amongst men.
The world is a bit lesser today knowing that he is no longer with us. My deepest sympathies to his family and other friends — of which he had many.
What was most apparent today was how many lives Chuck touched — and across an amazingly diverse swath of people. And they all had stories about Chuck’s kindness, his honesty, and his love of life.
Chuck was a modern day Renaissance Man, and personified the Art of Manliness.
Here’s the short story that appeared on this evening’s news (sorry about the poor quality, but I haven’t rigged up a method to transfer recorded programs from my DVR to my computer — so I simply used my camera’s video cam to record as the story ran on the television):
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Sounds like a man I wish I could have known.
[...] Each paper usually (and often) reports on the deaths of area motorcycle riders, which always gives me pause as I’m certain that I’m going to know the killed rider (as I did when I read about the death of my fellow Patriot Guard Rider and good friend Chuck Burt). [...]