by JONATHAN LEMIRE
The sad procession wound its way under gray skies in a small New Jersey town, a caravan of limousines and FDNY rigs flanked by a sea of firefighters saying goodbye to one of their own. Clad in dress blues, their white gloves up to their temples in salute, firefighters from three states stood at attention yesterday as the flag-draped coffin of rookie Firefighter Michael Reilly made one last journey on the back of the fire rig he loved so much. "He knew exactly what he wanted, and he was thrilled to be there," said Erin Reilly, 23, as she eulogized her brother, who died Sunday from injuries suffered battling a three-alarm Bronx blaze that also took the life of an FDNY lieutenant. "He was born to be a firefighter," she said, flanked on the altar by her fallen brother's FDNY helmet. The overflowing crowd, which was estimated at equal to the 14,000-person population of Ramsey, N.J., listened quietly as loudspeakers arranged outside St. Paul Catholic Church crackled with life as politicians, relatives and members of the Bravest spoke glowingly about Reilly. "He did not live half as long as he should have, but the fire inside him burned twice as bright," said Mayor Bloomberg, glancing at Reilly's mourning parents, Michael and Monica, sitting in a front pew. "Michael was a hero in the real sense of the word." Reilly, 25, and Lt. Howard Carpluk, 43, were among dozens of firefighters who raced into the Mega 99 Cent store on Walton Ave. in Mount Eden to battle a blaze that sparked behind an old refrigerator and quickly became an inferno. Investigators are probing whether shoddy repair work after a 2000 arson fire led to the fatal floor collapse, sending both men plunging into the basement. Reilly died hours later. Carpluk, who succumbed to his injuries the following day, will be buried today in Islip. "Like so many of you today," said FDNY Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, addressing the grieving members of Reilly's Engine 75, "Michael didn't join the Fire Department because it provided a paycheck - there was something more." Reilly long spoke of becoming a firefighter, first joining the Ramsey volunteer Fire Department before rising to the rank of lieutenant in the Stratford, Conn., force. He then answered another calling and enlisted in the Marines, serving in an air plane crash fire rescue unit in Iraq. But his dream remained the FDNY, and scores of friends remembered yesterday how excited Reilly was to graduate from the Fire Academy in July after his instructors recognized his potential and selected him a squad leader. "He was dedicated, he was determined, he loved the job and he was a leader," said fellow probationary Firefighter Matthew Crowley, 29, of Reilly, who graduated in the top 5% of his class. "You didn't want to disappoint him." As the service ended with a rendition of "Amazing Grace," Reilly's Engine 75 brothers walked his coffin back to the waiting rig bedecked with black-and-purple mourning bunting. The FDNY pipes and drums then shifted into the mournful notes of taps, and the faces of relatives and firefighters were once again covered in tears. "Michael lives his dream," Bloomberg said. "But sadly, we'll never know how high his dream would've taken him."
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