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Five days later, Coffin's body was back in Bethlehem, Pa., where Betsy was staying with her family. The funeral was held in the church where he and Betsy had renewed their wedding vows two years earlier. Two-thirds of the choir rearranged their schedules so they could come to sing, and the organist took the day off in order to be there to play. A college professor, a drama teacher and a fund manager helped the rector trim hedges; an elderly parishioner spent the night before the funeral freezing lemonade and ice rings because the day of the funeral was to be sweltering. "Betsy and Chris would do anything for other people, and it was mutual," observed Rev. Nick Knisely. "That's where the outpouring came from, and that's what makes it so painful."
Betsy was presented with Chris' Bronze Star for meritorious service, which had been approved before his death. He never learned about the honor. Candy read aloud the eulogy Betsy had written about "the love of my life, my best friend, my soul mate, my hero." Friends who had known the couple for years found themselves learning about sides of Chris they had not known: "When you left to go overseas, you gave me a prayer to hold on to ... and now I pass it back to you ...
"May the Lord hold me and thee in his care While we are apart from one another Until we are together once more. So rest easy, my love, until we are together again."
Betsy placed two red roses on her husband's coffin before it was loaded into the hearse, led by a police car and trailed by a lone bagpiper. The wind was blowing, the sidewalks were full, and the air was silent, except for the pipes. It would have been Chris Coffin's 52nd birthday. --With reporting by Amanda Bower/Bethlehem, Nathan Thornburgh/Kennebunk and Simon Robinson/Baghdad