A courageous 29-year-old Marine helicopter pilot - killed in Afghanistan days before his third and final tour of duty was to end - was honored yesterday as a “young man of morals” before more than 1,000 mourners attending his North Attleboro funeral.

People carrying flags stood quietly alongside trees tied with yellow ribbons en route to St. Mary’s Church, where bagpipes greeted the body of Capt. Kyle Van De Giesen.

“We have been blessed to know a young man of morals, of values and of principles,” the Rev. David Costa said, “a young man who challenged himself and challenges us today to be the best we can be.”

A star North Attleboro High School quarterback who went on to graduate from St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Van De Giesen died Oct. 26 in a mid-air helicopter crash, leaving his wife, Megan, an 18-month-old daughter, Avery, and a son due this month.

He had been deployed to Afghanistan in March after two tours of duty in Iraq.

Costa acknowledged that Van De Giesen “struggled with the question: Where is God in the experience of war?” but found solace in his faith and family. Only a few weeks ago, he said, the captain e-mailed his wife, telling her he was looking forward to going to church with her, their daughter and their new son.

“He loved his family dearly, and he was never afraid to show it,” Capt. Eric Fleming, who went to flight school with Van De Giesen, said, noting the “goofy” faces he often made to make his daughter laugh.

So many mourners attended yesterday’s funeral that they spilled downstairs and outside, bracing themselves against the cold autumn wind.

Nancy Campbell, the mother of a Marine, wept as she watched Van De Giesen’s coffin carried out of St. Mary’s to begin its procession past several sites that were important to him, before returning to the church en route to Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne.

“I can’t imagine what the family’s going through,” Campbell said as she stood across the street from the church, carrying a sign that read simply: “Thank you.”

“It just hits very close to home.”