Roger E. Behre, who served as a volunteer firefighter with the New Providence Fire Department for 33 years, died July 22 at his home in Seven Lakes, North Carolina. He was 94.
A volunteer through the department's founding decades.
Behre joined the department in 1959 and served until 1992, a stretch when the borough relied entirely on volunteer staffing to keep the town safe. But firefighting was only one chapter in a life built around service.
A pilot who spent a career flying for others.
A Summit High School graduate whose family ran a rose-growing business in New Providence, Behre went on to serve in the U.S. Air Force, rising to lieutenant colonel. He took his first solo flight in 1954 and flew refueling aircraft for the Strategic Air Command before joining the New Jersey Air National Guard, where his unit trained pilots and navigators for radar patrol and surveillance during the Vietnam War.
After his military career, Behre flew commercially for Pan Am and later Delta Air Lines out of JFK, piloting DC-8s, 737s, 707s and 747s across Europe, South America and Africa — eventually reaching all 50 states and more than 50 countries over his career.
The flights he was proudest of.
During the Gulf War, Behre volunteered to fly Pan Am missions into combat zones supporting Desert Shield and Desert Storm, ferrying troops home to the United States. His family's obituary notes those were the most satisfying and proudest flights of his career — a fitting bookend to a life spent bringing people safely home, whether from a burning building or a war zone.
Behre had a lifetime of stories from the cockpit, but he often joked that "the only time he felt unsafe was driving in Brooklyn on the Belt Parkway back and forth to the airport" — a line that says as much about his humor as his humility.
A man of simple priorities.
Behre was also a member of the American Legion. His family remembered him as someone who never saw a need to replace perfectly good, 30-year-old furniture, but always made sure his children had what they needed for their education — a small detail that captures exactly what he valued most.
Family.
He was predeceased by his wife of 55 years, Claire, and by two children, Suzanne and Steven. He is survived by four children — Walter Behre of Moscow, Idaho; James Behre; Karen Halada of Middlesex, New Jersey; and Charles Behre of Costa Mesa, California — along with 11 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
A memorial ceremony will be held at a later date in New Jersey; no date has been announced. Boles Funeral Home in Seven Lakes is handling arrangements. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation or St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
