The funeral service for Petty Officer First Class Corey Ingram was held Tuesday at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie. Family, friends, service and community members filed in past lined-up Patriot Guard riders to pay their respects.
Ingram’s cousin Andrea sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”
(Andrea sound singing…)
Several hundred people attended the funeral service for Corey Ingram of Poughkeepsie. He was among the 10 U.S. sailors killed last month when a Navy ship collided with an oil tanker off Singapore. Navy Petty Officer Jordan Williams is an aviation structural mechanic from Hopewell Junction. He served as one of the pallbearers.
“It actually means a lot, especially having all of these military personnel here. I’m glad to see everybody here to support his family,” Williams says. “Losing a shipmate, especially the way he was, the accident happened, it’s rough,. It hurts manpower, it hurts personnel, it hurts everybody. It hurts family the most, obviously, finding him the way that they found him.”
The 28-year-old Ingram was an information systems technician aboard the USS John McCain when it collided with that tanker August 21. Navy divers recovered the victims’ remains inside flooded compartments of the ship the next day. Chief Master Sergeant Jerry Ingram of the 105th Airlift Wing at Stewart Air National Guard base is Corey Ingram’s father. Master Sergeant Sara Pastorello also is with the 105th Airlift Wing at Stewart.
“We’re a tight family and it’s incredible to see the turnout from all the branches today,” Pastorello says. “We’ve experienced a lot of loss this year and now having it hit close to home with a son is terrible to watch but that’s why we’re all here.”
Some of that loss occurred in July, when 15 Marines and a Navy sailor were killed in a plane crash in Mississippi. The transport plane was based at Stewart as were nine of the 16 service members killed. Pastorello says there have been other losses in recent years.
“We’ve lost members of our base defense squadron, and we’ve lost three members since 2013, and then the nine Marines recently,” says Pastorello. “And then to have to bring one of our chief’s sons home, it’s a tough stretch but it’s brought everybody together, and the support of the community has been overwhelming.”
Poughkeepsie Mayor Rob Rolison says he did not know the Ingram family before these last three weeks.
“They’re a very well known family in the City of Poughkeepsie, and I had people text me and send me emails and voicemails saying, ‘hey, thank you for what the city’s doing for the Ingram family,” says Rolison. “It’s amazing how many lives that they’ve just touched themselves and all the people that Corey served in this country with such heroism and bravery. And we want to make sure that they, this community, is able to send that message today to not only just the Ingram family but to everybody. We take care of our own and we grieve for our own.”
Nelson Eddy Rivera is director of the Dutchess County Division of Veterans Services and a Navy veteran.
“He’s home right now. He loved this city. He, everybody tells me how involved he was. Poughkeepsie High School graduate, Dutchess County Community [College], and went to Dutchess Community,” says Rivera. “He left here but his heart was always here. That’s what I got out of talking to a lot of his friends and families yesterday at the wake.”
City of Poughkeepsie resident Annie Robinson has no relation to the Ingrams, but came out to support the family as the co-founder of a nonprofit group displayed on her shirt.
“It says, ‘Mothers in Charge. We’re going to change it; it’s ‘Mothers in Charge of Dutchess County but right now it says ‘Mothers in Charge,’” Robinson says. “That’s what we are. We’re a group that goes out and support our neighbors, friends, especially in situations like this.”
And the Patriot Guard riders who were lined up just outside the civic center before and after the service returned to their motorcycles, ready to guide the procession to Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery.
