cbsnews.com: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/11/20/60II/main318680.shtml (CBS) Although 343 New York City firemen died under the rubble of the World Trade Center, a FDNY tradition is living on, stronger than ever and more significant than any one of them could have imagined. Dan Rather reports. For 40 years, a small band of brothers – full-time fire fighters and part-time musicians – have performed at department occasions: weddings, parades and every once in a while, funerals. Since Sept. 11, the funerals have been constant. By Thanksgiving, the band will have played at about 300 services. Since Sept. 11, the snare of drums and the bellowing of bagpipes has been echoing in the suburbs and canyons of New York City. "You go from one to the next to the next and the same. Never get used to it. You never get used to it," says one member, Charles Fitzpatrick. The 70 members of the FDNY Emerald Society Pipes and Drums have hung up their firemen's helmets and donned kilts full time. "I've played more in six weeks, buried more guys in six weeks, then I’ve done in 22 years a firefighter," says Mickey Grace. Only a few firemen in the ruins have been identified. For most, ground zero will be their final burial ground. For those who are found, there are funerals; for the rest, memorial services. And the band will be there for all of them. The men plan to be playing at churches beyond Christmas. Jimmy Ginty is a founding member of the Pipes and Drums. Like several other members, Ginty is retired from the department, but not from the band. "It's something that we have to do and we want to do. Because of the great loss and the brotherhood in the job," he says. Brian Grogan has spent 20 years with the department, 16 as a bagpiper. "Before Sept. 11, you played funerals, you played memorial services," he says. "But, thanks to God, there weren't that many. After Sept. 11, it's been constant. Reminds me of that movie "Groundhog Day," when every day, just doesn't stop." Every morning, Grogan says, he gets up and thinks that he cannot stand another day. Then he goes and plays. "A lot of people, when they lose a family member, maybe it might have been a young person, an old person, a grandfather or something like that, it's usually one person, one at a time," says Tim Grant, the leader of the band. "Everybody here knows 20, 30 people. When do you ever in your life lose that many people in a day that you know?" It is routine to have 10 services a day. One Saturday, there were 21. The band often is spread so thin that only a few players can show up at each service. Tom McEnroe remembers doing four in one day. Many days, the men travel hundreds of miles, driving from church to church, to places like the Bronx, where Sean Tallon was mourned. Tallon was a trainee, two weeks short of his 27th birthday, single, a former Marine. But more often, the pipers and drummers find themselves playing miles from the city, in the suburbs where most firemen and their families now live. On this day, i was Battalion Chief Joseph Marchbank’s turn to be memorialized. He had served 22 years and left behind a daughter, Lauren, 14, and a son, Ryan, 8, as well as his wife, Teresa. Teresa Marchbanks was particularly moved by the final farewell. "They walked us," she said of the bagpipers. "How beautiful is that? And to see everybody lined up. I mean, that is incredible. I wanted it to last forever. I really did. I wish it could have just, it's a beautiful day. And I just wish that it could ... I could have rode like that for a couple of miles. I didn't want it to end." Centuries ago, in the Scotland and Ireland, bagpiping was a call to battle. That piercing cry would echo from glen to glen. The blasts of bagpipes may seem more fit for marching than mourning, but their power is unmistakable: No one understands that better than Dennis Smith, who wrote a book about the FDNY, "Report From Engine Company 82." Smith himself was a fireman and member of the band: "It's a very simple instrument in terms of what it does," says Smith. "It inspires, it generates extraordinary enthusiasm for the moment. Because of the wailing nature of it, it is able to move you to tears in a funeral environment. In a second. I mean to hear the bagpipers play "Amazing Grace" and to look at these young women with these little children at their knees, to see that is very, very moving." "Amazing Grace" is always played when the casket and family are entering the church. For bagpipers, this is a heartbreaking moment. "We're always right in front of the church, they're coming out of the limousines," says Chris Walsh. "You see the wife, you see the children, and firemen seem to always have a lot of children. And everybody's lost and hurt and you're standing right there." "There's still a twist in your stomach and choke in the throat and a tear in your eye, no matter what. You think you would get hard to it, but you don't," says Charles Fitzpatrick. But no matter how hard it is to play in front of the church, there is one period even tougher, and is the one thing they try to avoid. Bill Duffy talked about it while waiting for one service to end. "You'll notice a lot of guys in the band aren't going into the churches," says Duffy. "I only go in general I only go in if I really knew the guy. Because it's just too much. It's just too much emotionally to bear to do that." Several days later, every single member of the band came prepared to do just that, for their beloved drummer – their only member to die at the World Trade Center. Durell Pearsall, 30, was known as Bronko. He left no parents, no wife, no children. The band was his family and they gathered, as they say, to "pipe him to heaven." Usually one lone piper plays "Amazing Grace." For Bronko, there was a symphony. When the playing stopped, they all carried their instruments through the church doors. For the band, as for the rest of us, life is slowly returning to normal. Wit every week there are fewer funerals now, fewer endings, and more beginnings. Two weeks ago, Brian Grogan got a taste of that himself. It was his daughter's wedding. And the men from the Emerald Society were there – playing a different tune, making a joyful noise. This was one day Grogan hoped would never end. Said Grogan: "It sets aside what I've been through and what the rest of the fire department's been through and the rest of the world’s been through. This is the greatest feeling in the world." © MMI, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.