AUGUSTA — Rifle shots rang out followed by the solemn playing of taps at the Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery on Tuesday in honor of Dennis Blasens, a Brunswick resident and veteran who was allegedly killed by a neighbor last month.

“Dennis Blasens has been called to the highest command,” a Kennebec County Honor Guard member told the gathered crowd.

Blasens, who served in the U.S. Navy for 25 years, including time at Brunswick Naval Air Station, received official military honors May 19. At the graveside ceremony in Augusta and a memorial service in Lewiston, friends and family remembered Blasens as a dedicated family man and a talented mechanic who never hesitated to offer his services to others.

Blasens, 61, is survived by his wife of 35 years, Michele; their two sons, Nicholas and Francis, and their families; and countless other family members and friends “who will all continue Dennis’ legacy and honor his memory,” according to his obituary.

Blasens’ neighbor, 45-year-old Tanner Dostie, is facing murder charges in the April 10 killing and is being held without bail at the Cumberland County Jail. Dostie’s attorneys said in April that their client plans to plead not guilty at his arraignment, which had not been scheduled as of Monday.

Blasens’ loved ones said they hope he is remembered for his life of generosity and kindness, not the circumstances of his death.

“My father was the kind of person who always cared more about other people’s well-being than his own,” Dennis Blasens’ son, Francis Blasens, said Tuesday.

Francis Blasens described his father as steady, deeply caring, stubborn and funny. The two spent years repairing a ’90s Ford F-150 together and making memories Francis said he wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

“Sometimes he’d ask me to come over and work on something, but looking back now, I realize that was often his way of saying he missed me without actually saying the words,” Francis Blasens said.

Everyone from old friends to Blasens’ dental team came out Tuesday to share stories about the father and servicemember. Many anecdotes revolved around helping someone fix an issue with their home or vehicle.

“(Dennis) was always happy and willing to help,” said Monique McDonald, who was Blasens’ neighbor at the Brunswick base and whose husband served alongside Blasens. “He was there for a good time; made everybody laugh.”

McDonald’s and Blasens’ kids grew up together on the base, she said. She remembers Blasens being a key player in impromptu water balloon fights that often included the whole neighborhood.

“It was just like how it goes in the military; you’re one big family,” McDonald said.

Blasens oversaw mechanics who worked on airplanes at the Brunswick base, according to his son, Francis.

Dennis Blasens met his wife, Michele, in Ohio while she was working in a beauty salon located above the Armed Forces recruiting center where Dennis worked. The couple married in 1990. He took temporary deployments to places like Italy and Puerto Rico, Francis Blasens said, so the children wouldn’t be disrupted by moving.

David Reagan grew up and went to high school with Dennis Blasens in Ohio. Reagan lives in Kentucky now, but stayed in contact with Blasens throughout the years and would get together with him whenever Blasens visited Ohio.

As teens, the pair played sports together and worked together at Reagan’s stepfather’s trucking company. Reagan left Ohio for the Air Force around the same time Blasens enlisted in the Navy, he said.

With a laugh Tuesday, Reagan recalled a memory of when the two were 15 or 16 and he accidentally hit Blasens’ thumb with a sledgehammer while fixing a truck.

“I think we tore up a little more than we fixed,” Reagan said.

His longtime friend “would give the shirt off his back,” Reagan said.

Blasens was Shirley Balboni’s supervisor on an aircraft maintenance team at the Brunswick Naval Air Station for five or six years back in the 1990s and 2000s. He was also one of her best friends.

“He took me under his wing and taught me how to fix engines,” Balboni told a reporter last month. Together, their team stripped the P-3 Orion planes to their frames and prepared them for flight. They fixed engines, gear boxes and anything to do with the mechanical functioning of the aircraft.

Blasens was patient and paid close attention to detail, which were necessary skills for that line of work, Balboni said. And he loved to tinker.

“He did not like sitting around doing nothing,” she said. “His legs had to be moving. His hands had to be doing something.”

Whenever any sailor needed help repairing something at their house, Blasens assembled a working crew to get it done. And if anyone was struggling to make ends meet, he would connect them to resources.

“We’d help the sailor in need,” Balboni said. “That’s the Navy way.”

Francis Blasens said in a eulogy Tuesday that he’ll think of his dad every time he helps someone out, expecting nothing in return — just like Dennis would have.

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