Rare ceremony had Glens Falls touch

Father O'Keeffe, a colonel in the Army and command chaplain of the military district of Washington, delivered the prayer at the brief ceremony, held under sunny skies in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

While there were no precedents to guide him, Father O'Keeffe knew he wanted "a dignified, appropriate and brief prayer."

Sensitivity

"I wanted to be sensitive to Christians as well as non-Christians," the chaplain said. "I tried to weave the basic idea of the Lord's Prayer with the nation's motto."

The disinterment ceremony has "never been done before, and it will never be done again," he said, adding that all service personnel now have DNA information listed in their medical records so that remains can be identified.

Who is he?

He explained that dog tags weren't a foolproof way of identifying a soldier.

"Whether in a submarine like the Thresher, or an airplane crew lost at sea, or on a battlefield where a person is literally blown apart, we carry dogtags -- but even steel disappears," he said.

Important symbol

Father O'Keeffe, who will complete 20 years in the Army in July, has memories of being a young man during the Vietnam War era.

"I was born and raised in Glens Falls," he said. "I went to St. Mary's from kindergarten through high school. A number of my classmates from St. Mary's were killed in Vietnam, and two members of my college class were killed."

Had he not been in the seminary after graduating from Fordham in 1965, where he had been commissioned as a second lieutenant through Army ROTC, he, too, may have gone to Vietnam. "I would have gone by `67," he said. "Why the Lord called me to be a priest is still a mystery."

Crowd array

"As I looked out at people, I saw Congressional Medal of Honor winners, Green Berets with combat awards, a man with long hair standing next to a man with a crewcut wearing a suit and tie," he said. "The passion for the war and the issues that divided us have been resolved. What lingers are the effects on the soldiers who fought in the war for 12 months and then were discharged.

"It was kill or be killed -- and then be transformed into a civilian and face the people and protests. When the soldiers came home from World War II and Korea, it took two weeks, so they had time to transition. The effects [of Vietnam] are still present in VA hospitals."

Serving soldiers

"I've always been a pastor," he said. "I always have a parish on Sunday, and that parish connects me. It keeps me in touch with where people really are."

He enjoys participating in Baptisms, First Communions and weddings, but he also does a lot of counseling.

"The military is a dangerous business," he said. "It's stressful and challenging, but the Army has been very good to me."

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