Joe Theinert honored on land and sea

The deck of the Lt. Joe Theinert was filled with well-wishers
during its christening at the South Ferry maintenance dock on
the morning of July 3. The recently painted red awning will
make this vessel recognizable from a distance.

A summer-clad crowd stood witness on a bright and fair Saturday, July 3 as South Ferry officially renamed the Southern Cross in honor of Shelter Island’s fallen hero, Army First Lieutenant Joseph Theinert, who died in Afghanistan on June 4 at age 24.
“We want to thank you for the honor and the privilege of renaming this boat for Joe,” South Ferry President Cliff Clark said in gratitude to parents Jim and Cathy Theinert of Sag Harbor and Chrystyna and Frank Kestler of Shelter Island and Mattituck; both extended families attended the ceremony on the deck of the Lt. Joe Theinert.
“I assure you this town will never forget Joe,” Mr. Clark added. In addition to the rechristening, the New York State Legislature approved a bill last week to rename Route 114 from South Ferry to the traffic circle at Cartwright Road the “Lt. Joseph J. Theinert Memorial Way.”
Mr. Clark led the ceremony and welcomed members of Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter’s family, the 19-year-old Sag Harbor native who was the first and only other East End resident besides Lt. Theinert to die in combat since 9/11. The bridge on Route 114 in Sag Harbor was renamed in his honor.
“We think it’s awesome that somebody can drive through Main Street of Sag Harbor, and drive over a hero’s bridge, and drive a few miles on a mundane state highway and then drive onto a hero’s ferry,” Mr. Clark said.
Town Supervisor Jim Dougherty was one of many elected officials present. “Joey Theinert was a true hero,” he said. “I’ve had the wonderful privilege to get to know Joey’s family, and his entire family are heroes, every one of them.”
The supervisor offered praise to “very good friends of Shelter Island” — Ken LaValle in the state Senate, Marc Alessi in the Assembly and fellow Assemblyman Fred Thiele of Sag Harbor — for performing “a minor or major miracle yesterday in the circus we call Albany” by seeing through the passage of the bill establishing the memorial highway Thursday night. “We’re assured that Governor Paterson will sign it,” he added.
Senator Ken LaValle commented, “The three of us have always known that Shelter Island is a very, very special place. It showed the day we had the service here on the Island.” It inspired the legislators to “focus on doing something that needed to be done”: To re-name the mile and a half of Route 114 from the South Ferry dock to Cartwright Road the Lt. Joe Theinert Memorial Way.
“My heart goes out to all of you,” Mr. Alessi began. He said that after attending Joe’s memorial service and returning to Albany, “I found the memorial card in my jacket pocket and I placed it in my desk on the Assembly floor. I just can’t tell you how many times I found it again at critical moments when I didn’t think I could move this legislation. I’m a guy who believes in divine intervention, and I think that Joey wanted this not for himself but for his family and his friends who are going through the grieving process.”
Mr. Thiele expressed his condolences and his thanks to the Theinert family. “Their son gave the ultimate sacrifice, what Abraham Lincoln called ‘the last full measure of devotion,’ and we thank you for it.” He spoke of the new bond between his town and Shelter Island in honoring their heroes and supporting their families. “That’s what’s so special about Shelter Island and Sag Harbor. When one of our own is in trouble, we all come together to help in whatever way we can.”
Mr. Thiele acknowledged “well deserved” jokes about state government and said, “Decorum doesn’t always lend itself to the floor of the state Assembly.” But when Assemblyman Alessi read Joe’s writing about why he wanted to serve his country, “For once you could hear a pin drop … and then when the vote was done, everybody rose in a standing ovation to Joe Theinert.”
Jane Finalborgo of Congressman Tim Bishop’s office read a proclamation in honor of Joe brought to the floor of Congress by Mr. Bishop and now part of the permanent record of the Library of Congress. It includes the words Lt. Theinert wrote in a memory book his family found after his death, words that have been published repeatedly as part of the media coverage of his death. “There is nothing glorious about war. But I will go to it to keep the people I love away from it.”
“Duty, honor and country, these are things that Joe knew well,” Mr. Clark said in his comments at the podium. He praised a family that showed its strength by standing on their feet for close to seven hours at the Catholic Church during the wake for Joe. “They showed so much love for the rest of us — that’s just a manifestation of what I’m talking about.”
“After the way our community has responded to this tragedy, it just makes me proud to be a Shelter Islander again,” said Mike Mundy, Joe’s basketball coach and friend. He noted that America has just finished its worst month in Afghanistan: “Over 40 families and communities have just experienced the loss and the grief” felt on Shelter Island, “and our hearts go out to them.”
“Today’s a day to honor not just Joe but all the young men and women who are serving this country,” Mr. Mundy said. “These are talented young men and women. They have other options and choices in life. They choose to serve us and we owe them a tremendous debt.”
“In my mind, this vessel is the perfect way to honor Joe. When you think of Joe, you think of a steady young man, always staying the course and serving other people. … As you ride on this boat or drive across the bridge to Sag Harbor, remember Joey Theinert and Jordan Haerter” and what they stood for.
Cliff’s brother Bill Clark recognized the U.S. Coast Guard role in quickly approving the name change for the Lt. Joe Theinert, within one week of an official request. The rechristening was attended by Captain Joe Vojvodich, commanding officer for Sector Long Island Sound.
“One of the most moving things I’ve witnessed in my lifetime was bringing Joe home on our ferry boat and witnessing [Joe’s brother] Jimbo pilot that boat and looking out at the bay and seeing representatives of all the East End towns there,” Bill Clark said. When asked to participate in the maritime honor guard, the Coast Guard response was, “‘Where do you want us and when do you want us there.’ It was unequivocal,” he added.
On the day of the procession, “I had mixed emotions … How sad it was that this happened to Joe. It is and was overwhelming beyond my ability to comprehend. Here I was on the bridge of this vessel thinking how proud I am being a part of this event. I thought, ‘Am I supposed to feel this good under these circumstances?’ … after talking to people, I know a lot of us had those thoughts.”
Bill recalled having asked Joe, a summer deckhand at South Ferry, about his plans for the future. His commitment to serving his country was clear. “This is exactly what Joe wanted to do. He wanted to be a leader of men and women in the United States Army,” Bill Clark said.
He explained that the Lt. Joe Theinert is only the seventh name given to South Ferry’s nine double-ended vessels. “We’ve been very stingy with our naming,” he said. The Sunrise and Southside are named for ships built by Bill and Cliff’s grandfather, Captain C. Y. Clark, in the 1920s. “We’re attached to those names big time,” Mr. Clark said. The other, the Captain Bill Clark, “was named after my dad,” who wouldn’t have stood for that kind of recognition when he was alive, according to Mr. Clark. “He was the opposite of that sort of thing.”
The Lt. Joe Theinert, built in 1997, has the same basic design as the Southside and the Sunrise, making them hard to tell apart from a distance. Instead of the usual boat colors of white and blue, South Ferry decided to paint the top of the awning on the re-christened boat red.  “Now, we think of these boats as the red, white and blue part of our fleet,” Mr. Clark said. “I don’t know of anything that could be a better fit.”
After the speeches
, the official rechristening commenced. Cliff Clark led Chrystyna Kestler to the end of the boat in the South Ferry slip, equipped with a beribboned champagne bottle. “Take it like you’re hitting Jimbo with a wooden spoon,” he said. It took two swings but the bottle exploded into shattered glass and bubbling froth. Ms. Kestler hugged Mr. Clark and the ceremony shifted to the bridge of the vessel where Jimbo and Billy Theinert lifted a sheet covering the mahogany sign bearing the now official name of the boat.
Alongside the ferry’s new name is the insignia of the U.S. Army’s 71st Cavalry Unit and the motto that guided many a cavalryman, no more so than Lt. Joe Theinert: “Gallantly Forward.”