HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — A
Las Vegas police officer and U.S. Army veteran who was among 58 people killed
in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history provided instructions ahead
of time for those at his memorial not to mourn, a pastor told the crowd at his
funeral on Friday.
"If you're reading this,
then I've been called home," said the computer file that Charleston
Hartfield began about a year ago. Senior Central Christian Church Pastor Mike
Bodine said it was found by Hartfield's wife, Veronica, following his death
Oct. 1.
Along with heartfelt messages to
his family and instructions not to wear black and to play Johnny Cash and Nina
Simone songs, Bodine told the more than more than 2,000 people at Hartsfield's
service that he wanted them to enjoy themselves and remember him for who he
was.
"The truth only,"
Hartfield's message added. "None of that stuff about how great I
was."
Everyone broke that rule over the next hour.
Friends, his cousin, brother and
sister, and police and military officials including Brig. Gen. Zachary Doser,
the head of the Nevada Army National Guard, characterized the man most called
"Chucky" as an inspiration, a mentor and a quick wit.
Chris Stockton, a cousin who
grew up with Hartfield, said he razzed Hartfield about joining the 82nd
Airborne and jumping out of airplanes instead of joining the U.S. Marines, like
he did. Hartfield responded that he couldn't get his head to fit in a jar — a
friendly swipe between close friends at the close-cropped reputation of the
Marines.
Doser praised Hartfield, who at
age 34 had accumulated 17 years of military service in Iraq and with a
quartermaster unit in the Nevada Guard, as the epitome of "everything good
about being an American."
He posthumously promoted
Hartfield to first sergeant in the Army Reserve.
Clark County Sheriff Joe
Lombardo called Hartfield, an 11-year police veteran, a "remarkable
officer" killed by "an unremarkable person."
Investigators have
not determined what motivated the shooter, a 64-year-old retired accountant,
real estate investor and high-stakes gambler, to plan and execute his attack.
Lombardo said Hartfield 's death
was considered on-duty because he tried to shield, protect and shepherd people
in a concert crowd from danger.
"That night, in a hail of
gunfire, Charlie's last actions spoke for him," Lombardo said. "He
took actions to save lives."
The sheriff wasn't the only
person to recall a passage at the end of a book Hartfield wrote about life as a
police officer, called "Memoirs Of A Public Servant."
"To the world you may be
but one person, but to one person you may be the world," it said.
Hundreds of police officers and
military service members filled the Henderson, Nevada, church where bagpipes
played and pallbearers bore Hartfield's flag-draped casket into the auditorium.
Speakers stepped to a podium flanked by a two pair of western boots. One, a
worn brown pair, was stitched with the American flag
Earlier, a blocks-long police
motorcade caused traffic and tourists to stop for a moment on the Las Vegas
Strip, where the procession passed the scene of the shooting at the Route 91
Harvest Festival country music concert near the Mandalay Bay resort.
Some saluted and at least one
man wept as a phalanx of more than 50 police motorcycles with lights flashing
led a police pickup truck bearing the flag-draped casket on a sunny and breezy
day that had palm trees waving in the wind.
Doser, who viewed the spectacle
from inside the procession, said he'll never forget passing a woman standing
alone with a rose in one hand and her other hand over her heart.
____
Associated Press writer Sally Ho
contributed to this report.
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