PDA

View Full Version : BPD reaches out to cop hurt in Iraq



thedrifter
09-08-06, 07:45 PM
BPD reaches out to cop hurt in Iraq
By Michele McPhee/ The Beat
Boston Herald Police Bureau Chief

Friday, September 8, 2006 - Updated: 01:04 AM EST

In the days before BPD officer Terrence Burke left his Dorchester home and the South Boston community he patrolled as a rookie cop, he wrote a letter to his BPD brethren explaining his decision to re-enlist with the Marines and go off to Iraq to battle terrorism.

“I feel very passionately about protecting the American way of life and would sacrifice as many lives as necessary, including my own, to protect it,” Burke, 28, wrote in an open letter to his fellow cops in District C-6 last Nov. 29, days before he would be deployed to Fallujah.

Those words have become especially poignant this week as the BPD learned that Burke was wounded in a bomb blast. Yesterday he was in critical condition at a German hospital, his right leg blown off below the knee and second-degree burns covering his bruised and broken flesh.

The explosion killed two of Burke’s fellow Marines and was likely witnessed by BPD officers Danny McMorrow and Mike Brown. The three cops - Burke, Brown, and McMorrow, along with a fourth, Mike Fayles - are all on active duty serving with the Marines of Weapons Company 1/25, a reserve unit based at Devens. Fayles, wounded earlier this year, was not with the unit when it was hit.

Burke had already served four years with the Marine Corps when he graduated from the BPD Academy last April. Within months of graduation, Burke wrote in his letter, he knew he needed to go to Iraq and help “protect this country against all enemies.”

Over the past year, even after he was promoted to Marine sergeant, Burke never lost e-mail contact with the cops back home, and they replied with pictures of familiar scenes from his old South Boston beat: C-6 officers on East Broadway, the Sugar Bowl Coffee Shop, the first blizzard on Castle Island. There were updates on cop gossip, marriages, good busts, transfers - all designed to make Burke feel as if he was still a part of C-6.

“We wanted to remind him of home, remind him that he is coming home,” C-6 officer Liz Philbin said yesterday. “He would have been home next month, and we were all counting the days.”

Cops in Burke’s district learned of the blast Wednesday when his father, Tom, came into the stationhouse to tell them personally. Within minutes of that visit, Acting Police Commissioner Al Goslin called Burke’s mother, Joyce, and offered the BPD’s full support. The Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association will pay to fly his family to the Washington, D.C., area next week after Burke is hospitalized at an area military hospital there.

“We are all so devastated, and relieved he is still alive. We know he’s a passionate cop and a highly motivated Marine,” Philbin said. “But he’s one of ours. We just want him back with us, back in the fold.”

Another C-6 cop, Mark Bruno, predicted it will be only a matter of time before Burke, one of six city cops serving overseas, is back on patrol.

“A tank couldn’t stop this kid from coming back,” Bruno said. “He’s all heart.”

Commissioner Goslin said when that day comes, the BPD will welcome him back to the force.

“I clearly understand his commitment and admire it, and we are going to make the same commitment to him,” Goslin said. “His job is protected and there for him.”

BPPA President Tom Nee also vowed that the “unselfishness shown by each and every officer” Burke referred to in his letter will continue now that the rookie cop is wounded.

“Whatever it costs to take care of him and his, and reunite him with his family, is what this union is committed to doing for their brother,” Nee said yesterday. “The role of the BPPA is to protect those who protect others, and we will do that for Terry with our last breaths.”

Ellie