Missouri town gathers at last farewell for pilot killed in Iraq

Published: 2003-11-21

INDIAN CREEK, Mo. (CNS) -- Relatives and friends in military and civilian clothing lined the rain-soaked gravel road outside St. Stephen Church in Indian Creek Nov. 17 as Capt. Joseph B. "Ben" Smith returned to the place of his baptism. Smith and five other U.S. soldiers died Nov. 7 when the Black Hawk helicopter he was piloting was shot down near Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, in north-central Iraq. Smith was the first member of a Catholic parish in the Jefferson City Diocese to die in the Iraqi conflict. "He told us many times he was not afraid to die," said his mother, Katherine Smith, of Indian Creek. "He would be sorry to lose his life, and sorry for us, but he didn't want us to worry about him. He was right with his God." Father Donald J. Antweiler, pastor of the Indian Creek and Monroe City parishes, celebrated Smith's funeral Mass and preached the homily, and Father William F. Flanagan, retired pastor, concelebrated. Schools and businesses were closed, so people stood along the route between the funeral home and the church, holding flags in his honor.

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