GLENVILLE - 4:41 p.m. Monday: American flags rippled alongside Glenridge Road.
A motorcade of police vehicles, motorcycles and a hearse pulled into Glenville Funeral Home. Engines pulsed. Frigid air blew. In the moment, a roadside line of jacketed observers were nearly silent.
Transported were the remains of 30-year-old Rotterdam native John Grassia, one of two National Guard soldiers killed in a helicopter crash along the U.S.-Mexico border earlier this month.
It wasn’t a typical day for the Schenectady suburb, said Glenville Supervisor Christopher Koetzle. His office is up the street from the funeral home.
John Grassia and Casey Frankoski
“I know he wasn’t a town resident, necessarily, but you’re right,” Koeztle said. “There’s still a somberness, respectfulness and sense of loss still here.”
Grassia’s counterpart on the mission, Casey Frankoski, was brought to a funeral home on Washington Avenue in her native Rensselaer with the assistance of city police.
The Columbia High School and SUNY Schenectady graduate was 28 years old when she died.
The bodies of two National Guardsmen, Rotterdam native John Grassia, a state trooper, and Casy Frankoski of Rensselaer, were flown into Albany International Airport on a C-130 and were transferred to awaiting funeral vehicles.
“We ask the residents of Rensselaer or anyone else wishing to pay their respects line the escort route to honor Casey for the hero that she is,” Rensselaer police wrote on social media Monday.
Both bodies were escorted from the state National Guard headquarters at Albany International Airport around 3 p.m. Waiting on the tarmac to pay her respects to the fallen soldiers was Gov. Kathy Hochul, alongside members of the military and state police.
Grassia also served as an active state trooper in Columbia County and — most recently — Fonda before he was deployed to Texas. The Schalmont High School and University at Albany graduate eventually hoped to serve on the governor’s detail.
State police haven’t held an escort service for a member of the force killed on a military mission since Brooklyn Marine John McKenna died in Iraq 18 years ago, according to state police spokesperson Stephanie O’Neil.
Calling hours for Grassia will be at the St. John the Evangelist Church in Schenectady from 2 to 7 p.m. on March 25. Calling hours for Frankoski will be from noon to 5 p.m. at the Parish of St. John the Evangelist and St. Joseph Church in Rensselaer on Thursday.
They will both be buried the next day with full military honors at Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery in the town of Saratoga.
The only survivor from the crash is crew chief soldier Jacob Pratt, a Rensselaer native. He faces multiple surgeries, but has stabilized while staying in a Texas hospital alongside his family.
“He’s an excellent person, and a great soldier,” said retired Schenectady firefighter Willie Rhodes, who served as a supervising officer for Pratt, Frankoski and Grassia in 2021. “I really, really, really hope he pulls through. It was kind of heartbreaking to hear soldiers under my command that got hurt.”
The cause of the crash, according to the federal Joint Task Force North, could take months to determine.
Grassia’s aunt Val Bleser said both her nephew and Frankoski were skilled pilots.
“What happened?” Bleser said. “We are all Gold Star families and I don’t think it’s an out of the ordinary question. We would like to know and I hope that at some point in time that occurs.”