An officer’s call brought help to the Pentagon on 9/11. He’s now being mourned.

Officers lined the driveway at Cherrydale Baptist Church, holding flags on gold poles. A pickup truck rolled past with a police motorcycle resting in back. Corporal Barry Foust’s tall black boots were zip-tied to the bike’s footrests.

Nearly a quarter century before, Foust was on patrol in his cruiser when he saw a passenger jet veering off course toward the Pentagon. It was Sept. 11, 2001. He didn’t hear the impact but soon saw smoke in the distance.

It was Foust’s call to his dispatcher around 9:40 a.m. that September morning - “I think we just had an airplane crash east of here,” Foust radioed - that began Arlington County’s response to the terrorist attack and commenced a week he spent in the wreckage collecting evidence and remains of victims.

On Tuesday, about 100 uniformed officers, friends and family members gathered at the church to say goodbye. Foust, who spent more than 35 years with the Arlington County Police Department, died May 22 from pancreatic cancer linked to his work on 9/11, police said. He was 64.

“Almost 25 years later, the tragic effects of that day continue to ripple throughout Arlington and the public safety community,” Arlington police chief Andy Penn said. “Little did we know, those brave first responders, who ran toward danger to keep those they never knew safe from harm, would suffer its consequences decades later.”

The four hijacked planes that crashed into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center towers in New York and an open field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania killed nearly 3,000 people.

It also left tens of thousands of survivors, first responders and others with physical and mental health conditions connected to their exposure to the smoke, toxic chemicals and trauma, according to the World Trade Center Health Program. The program provides medical monitoring and covers treatment costs for those affected and is overseen by a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Asthma, numerous cancers and PTSD are among the chronic illnesses that have been identified, according to the health program.

Police are trained to run toward danger, but that was especially true for Foust, said the police chief. He was known to lend a helping hand and rarely said no to anyone. Even in the final weeks of his life, Arlington police chaplain Rev. Rod Mateer said, Foust pulled a neighbor’s car out of the mud with a tractor, despite “experiencing a lot of physical pain.”

The American flag flying Tuesday above the USS Arlington - a naval ship named in remembrance of the 184 people killed in the attack at the Pentagon - would be given to his family, Mateer said.

People called him “Bear.” Purple bracelets piled next to the sign-in books around the sanctuary encouraged everyone to be strong, like him. #fightlikeabear, read one.

#BEARSTRONG778, read another, using the badge number that long identified him.

The middle child of five, Foust grew up on a dairy farm in Hawley, Pennsylvania. Lib Foust, one of his four sisters, said their childhood was “the best life ever.”

“We played football in the snow until the wee hours of the morning. We toilet-papered houses when it wasn’t even Halloween. We would play hockey on any patch of ice, regardless of where it was,” she said.

His sisters messed with Foust constantly, Lib Foust said, sometimes stealing a single piece from a puzzle he had almost finished - or a part from his motorcycle “so mine always ran and his never worked,” she said.

Eventually, he left Hawley for Penn State University, where he graduated with a degree in criminal justice, and started as an officer in the county in 1986.

“He was proud to be a policeman for Arlington,” she said.

And he did the job with well-honed wit and a smile, said Tania Velez, an officer who worked with him since 1996.

Foust was called “The Golden Arm” - for the skills he’d show off during bowling night at Rinaldi’s Riverdale Bowl in Prince George’s County, Maryland. “Barry was a fierce competitor,” Velez said. He loved cards, the racetracks in Charles Town, West Virginia, and motorcycle rodeos, where officers would show off their riding skills.

He knew how to defuse “tension with humor,” and thought of out-of-the-box solutions for public safety and traffic issues, such as a particularly problematic interstate ramp.

Using an illuminated signboard, Foust wrote a message to oncoming drivers: “Don’t hit the car in front of you,” it read.

The sign went viral, Velez said, earning Foust the ire of management. But accidents at the location reportedly went down, she said.

“Only Barry could get his supervisor fired up and get in trouble for being too funny, only to, in the end, have the numbers to support that he was right,” Velez said.

When she trotted through a list of gestures and sayings he was known for - “Don’t get snippety!” and “Safety is no accident” - the chapel erupted into laughter. Many nodded their heads.

They are all left with “memories that will continue to show up when we least expect them,” Velez said.

Officers handed Foust’s wife, Karen, a folded flag before they walked out with the black-and-gold urn holding his ashes. As mourners left the church, they heard a dispatcher’s voice coming from a police cruiser and motorcycle.

“Arlington calling unit 778,” the woman said. “Arlington calling unit 778.”

The message in Foust’s honor went out to all units.

“His remarkable resilience and contribution to the Arlington community will never be forgotten …” she said. “On this day, June 2, 2026, Corporal Barry Foust,” the woman said, pausing and sighing deeply. “Unit 778 has officially ended tour.”

A plane flew overhead. Four gunshots rang. Taps played. Every officer stood in salute.