Franco & Firefighters

A family friend and one of Christopher's good friends growing up, Sargent Franco Aguilar passed away 2 weeks ago. Last week Christopher and I went down to Ritchfield for the viewing and funeral. When we went to the funeral we were told to park in the parking lot with the family. we went in and sat down with the family during the viewing. There were 2 highway patrol men standing at the head and foot of the casket. Every so often 2 more highway patrol men would march in and as they were coming in the 2 at the casket would turn to each other and slowly salute each other, then the would turn and slowly salute the 2 that had just come in. They would take a step to the replacements and then a step to each other and then turn and march between the replacements and the replacements would march to the head and foot of the casket. They would turn and salute each other as the other 2 marched out of the room. It was very impressing at how efficiently they did it. As the viewing was ending and we were getting ready to go to the auditorium for the funeral, Governor Herbert came in and talked to the family. They took Franco to the auditorium and the family followed. As we were walking in they had a corridor of officers standing at attention and another was playing the bagpipes. When I looked up as I walked in I could see that the back couple of rows of the auditorium were filled with marines, and all kids of law enforcement. We listened to a few people talk and to some very pretty and sad songs. They had the last call and the officers turned up their radios and we could hear them page Franco to answer his radio. When the funeral was over and we were getting ready to leave they had all the law enforcement leave first. When we walked out there were officers of all departments standing at attention from the door all the way through the parking lot to the hearse. I was very touched at the effort that was put into the funeral. We were heading to our cars to join the procession to American Fork and people were bringing around paper bags of food so we can eat lunch as we are driving. we then joined the line of cars. There were police motorcycles leading the way with their lights flashing and police cars in with the procession (with lights flashing). There were flags placed along the route that the procession took from Snow college in Ritchfield where the funeral was all the way to the edge of town. While driving through town they had the firetrucks blocking the intersections and it looked like everyone from town was standing out there waving flags or holding their hand over their hearts. There were even a couple of school classes out waving little flags. It was very touching to see how much he was loved and appreciated. We drove the back roads through, Aurora, Levan, and many more towns on the way to Nephi. Every town we came to had flags along the road firetrucks blocking the intersections and people standing by the road to honour him. It was amazing and hard to control the emotions when I realized how much planning and love was put into this procession. As we arrived at Nephi a group of police motorcycles broke away from the procession and merged on to the freeway as the rest of us drove through Nephi (Franco was a highway patrolman for Nephi). We got on the freeway at the opposite side of Nephi and the police motorcycles that had entered the freeway previously had blocked the traffic so we could merge. We moved to the fast lane so we could share the freeway with other motorists and turned our hazard lights on to notify others that we were there. As we approached 1600 north in Orem 3 police cars moved over to the other three lanes and slowed the traffic to let us over so we would be able to exit the freeway. When we came upon the new freeway entrance at Pleasant Grove, our new firetruck was parked at the top of the overpass with lights flashing and the firefighters were standing at ease, shoulder to shoulder along the side of the truck facing watching the procession as we drove under the overpass. We exited the freeway at American Fork and drove to the cemetery. When we got there we turned left on the road south of the cemetery and on one side of the road was a firetruck from AF and on the other side of the road was a Lehi firetruck. They both had their ladders extended and a huge American flag was draped between them and the firefighters standing along side their trucks.We drove under the flag and into the cemetery. During the grave side service they had the 21 gun salute, they played taps, and 3 helicopters flew overhead. They also had the corridor of law enforcement standing at attention from the hearse to the grave. It was a wonderful and touching day. He was a great man and is obviously respected and loved.

I was very impressed and thankful that the firefighters from my town paid tribute to Franco, so for family night, Allie, Trevor and I made cookies for our firefighters to thank them for their service. We took the cookies to them today and they let Allie and Trevor climb in the new truck and look around. One of them had Allie ring the bell on the truck and the other turned on the lights. Allie is very curious at this age and asks lots of questions, they were very patient with her and answered all her questions. She was having so much fun that she didn't want to leave. I'm glad they got that chance to spend time with the firefighters. As we were driving home we saw a rainbow. Allie loved it.