Funeral Detail - 4 Feb 06

Published on February 6, 2006 By chiprj In Blogging

The first couple of weeks for this rotation made it seem like it would be the busiest one I had served on. But then it slowed down quite a bit. One of the assistant NCO's was planning some leave when family came out to visit, so prior to his leave, he took on a couple extra funerals to make up for the week he'd miss. So, it was a few weeks between funerals for me.

I found out about Saturday's funeral at the practice on Tuesday. It was just a two man funeral and since we had one more confirmed for Saturday, we decided we'd wait until Thursday's practice to set our crew for both funerals. By Thursday, we still only had two funerals scheduled. One of the other NCO's offered to do the full honors and I volunteered for the two man. It turned out that the two man was for a former officer, so I decided to do the bugle myself and not mess with anyone else's Saturday. I made final coordinations with the civilian in the casualty affairs office on Friday and picked up the bugle, a flag case, and an extra set of gloves for the LT I'd be meeting just in case he didn't have any.

I got to the funeral home a little early and was introduced to some of the family members. I was then shown to a room where I could put my beret and the bugle case. The LT showed up just a couple minutes later and we talked through the ceremony real quick. This was the fifth or so service he'd attended in the past few months, so he didn't need much reminding, really.

The service was nice. A number of people talked about their memories. The man had touched a lot of lives in his time in the area. The chapel was filled to capacity and a number of people were standing in the entry way, just outside the chapel itself. This was making it hard for me to keep the device in the cone of the bugle concealed but I managed. At the end of the service a member for the staff asked everyone to stand for the presentation of the flag. The LT marched up the aisle and saluted the flag. I then turned (so nobody could see up the cone of the bugle) and hit the play button. It's funny how after so many times hearing the music, I can't see how anyone could be mislead into believing it is real. While the recording even has pauses and the faint sound of intakes of breath here and there, it just sounds fake to me. But, as has happened many times in the past, people told me that I did a lovely job playing. I do believe, though, that it's better to have the fake bugle than to tote in a boom box and play a CD. Even if you know the bugle is fake, it maintains the dignity of the ceremony much better, I think.

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Comments

xtine

on Feb 06, 2006

I never would've known except from reading your Funeral posts. I do know that every time I go to any sort of military ceremony, if it includes Taps in any way, I'm reduced to a puddle. Kind of embarrassing.

pseudosoldier

on Feb 16, 2006

I agree with you re: fake bugle. It still does maintain some of the dignity of the real thing.

Having said that, the funeral details I went on in AIT had a boombox.

mignuna

on Feb 16, 2006

chip, i loved this description. you managed to maintain the dignity of the occasion with your genuine concern. beautiful stuff.

mig xxx

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