I estimated a whopping 400 to 500 people in attendance at the funeral. I've never seen so many people at a funeral before. The attendees included family, and friends from church, work, the military, and skydiving. Dan had an amazingly wide circle of friends, all of whom held him in great respect. Skydivers were present from Skydive Houston, Skydive Spaceland and Skydive San Marcos.
At the guest book sign-in, orange and white ribbons were available to be pinned to shirts - those were Dan's skydiving jumpsuit colors.
It was a full three-hour service, and no one who attended could help but be emotionally moved by it.
It started with a Catholic mass service, with waving of the smoke pot, taking of bread and wine, singing of hymns, saying of prayers, etc. The priest spoke at great length about his personal experience with Dan, such as the day he fixed a breakfast for everyone when the church was under construction.
Pictures of Dan looked down upon us from big screen TV's mounted high on the front walls.
About a dozen people stepped forward to give personal testimonials about Dan. Both of Dan's daughters spoke, Samantha struggling through tears which made me cry for her pain, and Vanessa who was amazingly composed. Vanessa used to come to the drop zone with Dan and hang out with us. She said later she's planning on making a jump. Two of the testimonials were from skydivers: Marcello Garcia and John McDonald, and both were well done, spot on and very touching. A number of talks were given by Dan's Navy Seal friends. One asked all the Seals in attendance to stand, and about 30 men stood up. There were about 10 in uniform who were located by his casket, and who also served as his pallbearers. Another dozen or so sat together up front in civilian dress, and then another couple of handfuls were scattered randomly throughout the crowd. One Seal speaker had everyone shout out a traditional "Hooah Dan Potts".
With that done, Dan's casket was wheeled to an outside courtyard and an American flag was draped over it. A bagpiper played. Seals stood in formation at attention. Two crusty old Veterans wearing white removed the flag and folded it into a triangle. The flag-folder had an interesting technique where he would manipulate the folded flag triangle, flipping it in all directions in his hands, examining it from every angle to make sure it was absolutely perfect. The Vet marched over and handed the flag to a Seal, and the Seal in turn marched over and presented the flag to Dan's wife.
The casket was wheeled away, and everyone gathered in a reception hall for snacks. The skydivers moved around to different groups to chat with friends, some of whom haven't been seen in a while. After a while, we departed, and I ended up with a small group at a bar and grill, where more talk of Dan took place.
Many people were deeply moved by this service and the examination of Dan's life, and have taken it as a motivation to lead their own lives by the example in which Dan led his. There was a theme that Dan led his life "out loud", but I didn't really see him that way. He was a quiet and humble man. He didn't brag about his Seal service, didn't talk about his time in Vietnam or his brushes with death in combat, didn't push his religion on anyone - he just led his life, leading by example, treating people with respect, honesty and friendliness.
It was only about three months ago that I did a demo jump with Dan, which he organized for a benefit to raise funds for Wounded Warriors. He collected about six military veterans for the dive, and we were all honored to do it with him, and for the cause which meant so much to him. I never imagined that just a few short months later, that the roles would be reversed; that Dan would be gone, and it would be us now paying homage to him.
Goodbye Dan. You are greatly loved, and will live on in our memories.
(This post was edited by JohnRich on Mar 19, 2012, 4:35 PM)
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