EDINBURG, Texas (Border Report) — A funeral mass and service was held Thursday for a Border Patrol agent who died in a South Texas helicopter crash last week.
The body of Christopher Luna was to be interred in Edinburg after a funeral mass that was celebrated at the Basilica of Our Lady San Juan del Valle in the nearby border town of San Juan, Texas.
On Wednesday, a ceremony also was held in Edinburg for Luna by the nonprofit group The Honor Network, which presented Luna’s family with white gloves. The U.S. Honor Flag was present — that’s an American flag that the organization says has traveled millions of miles since the 9/11 tragedy.
A special U.S. flag was brough to South Texas for a special ceremony on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, honoring fallen Border Patrol Agent Christopher Luna. (Photo Courtesy The Honor Network)
Luna was a 17-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol when a helicopter he was flying in went down in a field over remote Starr County, on the South Texas border on Friday, killing him and two National Guard members who were on board. A third National Guardsman was seriously injured.
Luna is from Edinburg and was stationed in Rio Grande City, part of the RGV Border Patrol Sector.
Roel Ramos, Border Patrol Honor Guard Commander for the RGV sector, ceremoniously posted the United States Honor Flag, and presented white gloves to Luna’s wife that were used in the handling of the special U.S. flag, said Chris Heisler, president and founder of The honor Network.
Custom gloves — embroidered in blue with “USHF” — are worn to handle the United States Honor Flag. The flag is never handled with bare hands or held twice with the same pair of USHF gloves, and the USHF gloves are gifted to surviving family members of fallen heroes, according to the organization.
It was “a poignant gesture of respect and remembrance,” Heisler said of the flag and glove ceremony.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@Borderreport.com.
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