Carter's Funeral Home

Family, friends and scores of his fellow NYPD members gathered on a snowy Wednesday morning to remember Carter as a pioneer who dedicated his long and inspiring life to his country, his city and his kin. Grandson Jonathan Carter imitated the gravelly voice of the Air Force veteran in his eulogy for the 95-year-old Carter, who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and spent 27 years with the NYPD. “Always do the right thing and believe in God, for all things are possible with God,” said Jonathan, echoing his grandfather’s delivery.Floyd Carter Sr., Tuskegee Airman and NYPD vet, dies at 95 “My grandpa used to have to give his speeches, where he emphasized on certain parts of the Word,” continued Jonathan. “He said it in such a way. He would look at you with these eyes that would pierce through. You would just feel it in your soul.” The pioneering Carter died March 8, the last act in a groundbreaking life of service and accomplishment. The African-American pilot served in World War II along with the Korea and Vietnam wars, and flew one of the first planes during the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. He later became an NYPD detective, working as bodyguard for visiting heads of state like Cuban’s Fidel Castro and the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev, and commander of the 732nd Military Airlift Squadron at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. Mourners gathered at Harlem’s Greater Refuge Temple for the emotional farewell, where Carter’s casket rested amid a collage of photographs illustrating his remarkable nine decades. His wife of more than 70 years, Atherine, sat in the front row of the church with her son, grandson and other relatives. The couple met when she was working at the Tuskegee air base as part of an all-female repair crew, and they were married at the base in 1945. Carter was honored with the rest of the airmen in 2007 with the Congressional Gold Medal. “That was a wise, wise man,” said his grandson as the crowd hung on his every word. “He always did the right thing.”The back cover of the funeral program for Floyd Carter Sr.(New York Daily News) Carter’s fello... (New York Daily News)