Bill Cahir Memorial Fund

Sergeant William John Cahir was killed while serving with the United States Marine Corps in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan on August 13, 2009. 

The following eulogy was given by his brother, Bart Cahir, after Sergeant Cahir's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery on August 31, 2009. 

Sergeant Cahir was given full military honors.

Keep Bill's ideals alive...

Please Contribute to the Bill Cahir Memorial Fund

Good afternoon.

Today we come together to mourn the loss of my brother, William John Cahir, or Bill as most of you knew him. 

Much has been written about Bill since his death, primarily focused on his service and sacrifice for country.  This has been gratifying and heartening for all who loved Bill, but it has fallen short of conveying who Bill really was, and what he truly meant to those who knew him. 

My brother was, above all else, a kind and committed human being: a loving husband and proud father-to-be, a devoted son to parents John and Mary Anne, a true brother to me and my sisters as well as to his fellow Marines, and warm friend to many others that he met and touched in his 40 years on earth. 

He lived firm in the belief that each generation and each person must strive to make the world a better place. He was, in a real sense, a friend to all his fellow humans-- well practiced in empathy, courage, and honor. 

Because of his commitment to these ideals, Bill was a not one to sit on the sidelines of life, and he was able to accomplish more than a lifetime's share of goodness before he was gone. 

Perhaps the toughest part of Bill's death for us is the loss of the link he built within our family.  The Cahir's, Browne's, McFarland's, and Osborne-Smiths are a very close and diversely capable group.   Within this extended family, Bill was confidante and connection, the gentlemen who truly was a gentle man, who corresponded with a flair and warmth that made each of us feel like we were his closest relative. 

He was someone we could count on for a chronic and infectious youthful idealism, which in turn spurred many stimulating and challenging political discussions, or inspired us to try something new and different. 

Bill's journey through life was a winding one, due in large part to an underlying determination and ambition to try many things.  You may not know that Bill became an accomplished athlete in high school.  I say "became" because Bill was not gifted with a spectacular innate ability; rather, he achieved success from the grit and the will to push himself to find excellence. 

He needed this grit, and he also needed a keen ability to negotiate.  Consider that when Bill was 8 years old, after having had a few swimming lessons, he successfully lobbied our mother to drive him to practice 3 times a week at 5:30 in the morning so he could join the swim team.  Bill's desire to participate initiated our family into competitive swimming, with both Kathryn and me following.  But while my sister and I sanely wavered in our commitment to 5:30 AM practices, Bill's participation continued into high school, where he specialized in the Butterfly stroke and become one of the best in the district. 

Those of you familiar with swimming know that the butterfly, while lacking the grace of the freestyle or breast-stroke, requires the greatest strength while also testing one's internal fortitude.  It was fitting that Bill would chose this stroke and find success. 

Bill also possessed a lifelong love of music and theater, succeeding in the performing arts despite coming from a family with rather limited natural abilities in these areas.  

As a vocalist, Bill taught himself to sing well enough to perform with the chorus of the National Symphony at Wolf Trap.  A family highlight was when Bill more than held his own singing show tunes with a lead Broadway actress at our sister Ellen's wedding. 

As a self-taught guitarist, Bill developed improvisational skills that were good enough to play professionally, and to entertain fellow Marines during down time on deployments. 

And as an actor, Bill was determined enough to have earned an invitation to NYU's prestigious Circle in the Square summer acting studio.  And Who can forget Bill's participation in the Penn State production of "Sweeny Todd" or his preparation for a part in the play "Hair".  Here I will admit that while Bill's drive and determination were needed for the acting and singing, his Cosmo Cramer-like mop of hair was the one thing that came to him naturally. 

And as most of you do know, Bill had a great sense of humor and a self-deprecating wit.  In his early days as a columnist at the Daily Collegian, Penn State's newspaper, Bill took on a variety of humorous issues.  A personal favorite of mine was a column Bill wrote describing the travesty of "synthepop", a word coined in Bill's column to describe popular late 80's music.  In this column Bill humorously pondered whether it was the end of music.   It was almost as if Bill knew that Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder were waiting in the wings to restore musical order by destroying what he described then as "corporate" music.  

Probably one of Bill's funniest written stories was not one he published publicly.  In a family email received shortly after Bill visited our sister Kathryn in Colorado, Bill, always the reporter wrote a parody news account about his trip.  Bill detailed how on his first night in town, he spent a few hours with Kathryn and her friends in the pubs of Denver, not realizing the effects of even a limited amount of alcohol were enhanced by the first night in rarified air.  

The next day, Bill compounded this little lack of wisdom by enrolling in a day-long sky diving course, which would end with a tandem dive with each participant strapped below an instructor.  Perhaps it was the turbulence of the air plane flight, or adrenaline rush of the free fall, or maybe it was the acrobatic maneuvers orchestrated by the instructor after the parachute opened, or maybe it was the drinks from the night before.  But somewhere in the dive Bill not only lost his breakfast but he also hyperventilated and lost consciousness.  As his parody recounted, Bill came to just before landing where he remembered from the pre-jump training where he was supposed to lift his legs and let the instructor run-out through the landing.  Unfortunately for Bill, while the mind was willing, his oxygen deprived body was not.  He was dead weight.  In Bill's marine parlance, he did a "Louganis", a face plant dive into the gravel landing area.  This was followed by him and his loudly cursing and breakfast covered instructor being dragged across the landing area by their still deployed parachute. 

Whether through his writing or Bill's day to day wit, he always found a way to make us laugh.  And in case you missed it during the campaign: our name is pronounced CARE.     

Above all else, Bill was guided by an unyielding sense of honesty, integrity, and a belief in fairness.  It is why he is mourned by so many today.  He combined these principles with a gift for empathy and insight, enabling Bill to help others develop and build on their own strengths.

While his military service clearly demonstrated this commitment to his ideals, there is another milestone-- Bill's most meaningful-- that demonstrates what honesty and integrity can move people to. 

Bill left for boot camp in the fall of 2003 just a few months after beginning to date René Browne.  When the Cahir family first heard of René, we all wondered if a smart and beautiful woman would want to stay with Bill... not because he was unworthy or because we thought she was the type to run, but because he was a 34 year old guy who was shifting his life in a pretty dramatic way. 

What we learned was, through honest communication, René and Bill were able to put their faith in each other in a very short period of time.  And what began shortly before boot camp in person, continued through boot camp by correspondence, including Bill's letters frequently written by flashlight at night under a blanket.  And through these letters, they fell in love. What they recognized, before anyone else did, was that in each other they found the perfect complement to one another's honest approach in life.    

My brother Bill was a hero to me, more for the reasons I have discussed, than for having died protecting our freedom.  I was so lucky to have had an older brother like him for my 36 years.  

If you were fortunate like me, you may have received an email from Bill with the subject line "heya".   It was Bill's way of checking in and ensuring you were ok, and to give you the download on what was going on with everyone else.  He was my conduit to our entire family, for years filling in a gap of information which I created through my own lack of correspondence. 

I was blessed to have a brother who at every step of his life went out of his way to include me... and I will admit that I was not the easiest little brother to have around.  So many fond memories of playing football at Corl Street, basketball at Smithfield park, Penn State football games, drinks at his apartment when he was in college (and I was not of age), dinners at the HUB on campus to look at the "scenery", his 30th birthday in New York, my 30th Birthday on Bourbon street, his wedding, my wedding...

Perhaps the toughest thing for all of us is the sense of lost potential.  Through the years Bill had grown to be very comfortable with who he was and where he was going.  He was a man's man who was respected and admired by many, and was never happier than when playing with children like his niece Claire.  He was a good husband and, like our own father, would have also been a superb father.  He was everything any wife, mother, father, brother, or friend could want.  He was doing what he wanted to do and doing it very, very, well. 

We ask ourselves where do we go from here and how do we carry on?  I get so sad thinking of the opportunities and plans that will not be realized in our future.  I grieve so much for my family, Rene, Ellen, and Kathryn, and for my parents.  Bill would want us to take care of each other, because if he were here, that is what he would have been doing. 

I'm left with a quote that was sent to Eleanor Roosevelt at the time of Franklin Roosevelt's death. She kept it by her bedside until she died, and it read:

"They are not dead, who live a life in the lives they leave behind. In those whom they have blessed, they live again."

We were blessed, Bill... we were truly blessed.