Ever Helpful

Police Officer James F. Lynch - PAPD NY/NJ

End of Watch:  September 11, 2001 

James F. Lynch of Woodbridge, New Jersey spent roughly half his life serving and protecting others as a Police Officer for the Port Authority Police Department.  Officer Lynch joined the Department in April 1979, when he was just twenty-five years old.  He served it with distinction and honor for the twenty-two years that followed thereafter until, on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, he was killed at the World Trade Center while helping others.  He was just forty-seven years old.  

What I did not realize - until yesterday afternoon - was that Officer Lynch's son, James, attended Bishop Ahr High School in Edison, New Jersey, and was a classmate of my son, Rob.  As Rob informed me yesterday, he and Jimmy Lynch were soccer teammates.   It occurred to me that Jimmy Lynch in September 2001 was roughly the same age I had been in May 1981 when my father died suddenly.  I have a keen appreciation for just how tough a road life forced that young man to hoe.  

In the twenty-two years that Police Officer James F. Lynch served and protected those he served, he earned two Meritorious Citations for exemplary police action, including one he earned for his role in the rescue effort following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.   On what proved tragically to be the final day of his life, Officer Lynch was last seen carrying air tanks and breathing masks up to members of the FDNY.  

-AK