Family Steeped in History Mourns Soldier
Flags waved, a bagpipe wailed "Amazing Grace" and eulogies of courage and comradeship flowed Wednesday for Army Sgt. 1st Class Schuyler B. Haynes, a descendant of a famous Revolutionary War general, who was killed in Iraq two weeks ago.
"He was a loyal friend and courageous leader, equally at home with any soldier, NCO or officer," said Jimmy Campbell, who served with Haynes in Iraq, and was among 300 at the funeral Wednesday at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church.
Haynes, 40, "just wanted to be where the action was," his father, Robert Haynes, said outside the midtown Manhattan church, where police held honking motorists and buses at bay while pallbearers carried the flag-covered coffin in a tightly choreographed ritual.
With 17 years of service, Schuyler Haynes was on his second tour of duty in Iraq when he was killed Nov. 15 by a roadside bomb that exploded near his Humvee in Baquba, where he was a platoon leader in the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division. Also killed in the blast was Spc. Mitchel T. Mutz, 23, of Falls City, Texas.
The elder Haynes said his son was directly descended from Philip Schuyler, a wealthy 18th-century landowner and patriot who served in the British colonial forces and later as one of four major generals in George Washington's Continental Army.
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"He was a loyal friend and courageous leader, equally at home with any soldier, NCO or officer," said Jimmy Campbell, who served with Haynes in Iraq, and was among 300 at the funeral Wednesday at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church.
Haynes, 40, "just wanted to be where the action was," his father, Robert Haynes, said outside the midtown Manhattan church, where police held honking motorists and buses at bay while pallbearers carried the flag-covered coffin in a tightly choreographed ritual.
With 17 years of service, Schuyler Haynes was on his second tour of duty in Iraq when he was killed Nov. 15 by a roadside bomb that exploded near his Humvee in Baquba, where he was a platoon leader in the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division. Also killed in the blast was Spc. Mitchel T. Mutz, 23, of Falls City, Texas.
The elder Haynes said his son was directly descended from Philip Schuyler, a wealthy 18th-century landowner and patriot who served in the British colonial forces and later as one of four major generals in George Washington's Continental Army.