Today I had to go to a funeral for an Air Force retired Lt Col. We had practice yesterday, but there was another full honors funeral, so most of my fire team was there. Practice consisted of letting the new guy practice with the weapon. One of our other new guys was absent and I had him on my list to go on Friday, so I managed to get another airman that would show in case this guy didn't. I also got to meet with the Air Force 1LT that would come with us on the funeral. When an enlisted soldier passes away, the flag is presented by an enlisted soldier. When an officer passes away, an officer must present the flag.
I spent about 40 minutes talking through everything with the Lt. This was to be here first funeral, so I told her that outside of presenting the flag, she could do as much or as little as she wanted and I'd take care of anything she didn't want to do. By the time we'd talked through everything a couple of times, she felt pretty confident she'd be able to do everything without a problem. Her biggest fear was having trouble with the line during the presentation. I told her that I shared the same fear on my first funeral and told her how I'd stumbled through it a little, and that while it was difficult, it was not impossible.
We ended practice early, since there really wasn't anything to do with the one firer we had. I used the spare time to go over my uniform in my office one more time. Nothing had changed since I last looked at it, but I get paranoid about it anyway.
I picked up rifles at 11:15 and drove the van to our meeting point. We actually had an extra person show up today, which is always a good thing. You never know when someone is going to decide to have their wisdom teeth pulled (like my absent firer who also missed practice).
We got to the cemetery early (I'm extremely anal about being early). There was no church service, so people started to show up around 12:30 and they just kind of waited. I met the widow and her two sons. I introduced the LT and we talked for a little while. I then put the firing team and the bugler in place. I had the extra soldier stand with the bugler and instructed her to police up the spent brass after the gun salute (while the team folded the flag). We saw the vehicle from far off, so I had the team leader march the team into place. I also showed the LT where she should stand. The vehicle passed by and everyone saluted. The driver got out of the car and walked off. He just stood there and kind of looked at me. I had no idea what was going on and wasn't sure what to do. Everyone was near the plot and looked ready to go, so I figured that he wanted us to open the door. I marched to the vehicle, opened the door and removed the retaining pin. Then the guy decided to come over to talk to me. He said the family wanted to wait a bit because the Chaplain had not yet arrived.
I told the team leader to put the team at parade rest and just wait. I marched to the LT and told her what was going on. I then went back over to the man and double checked a few things. It was a good thing I did, too. It turns out that this cemetery did things a little different. The head of the casket would indeed go at the headstone, but the feet would run opposite to the writing on the headstones. The man told me that this community had originally been Methodist and so they wanted the feet pointing east. Something about sitting up and facing the rising sun or somesuch... I don't know, but I had to go back over to the team and alert them that they would need to take a different route to get the casket onto the platform. With the help of the driver, I then got the flag straightened out on the casket and tucked it in at the corners to ensure it wouldn't fly off with a breeze. After this, we just waited.
The Chaplain showed up a little bit later. He was a friend of the family and a Naval officer. I'm not sure exactly of the rank but I think he was CPT/O-6 (three thick bars on his shoulder boards). He came to me first and asked if I was in charge or if it was the LT. Under any other circumstances I probably would have laughed at this. It's rare to find an officer with a sense of humor as fine as this and it did brighten my day. He talked to me for a few minutes and told me how the ceremony would run. He then told me that he'd pass it on to the LT for me.
The ceremony started at 1:00. The team had a hiccup trying to get the casket to the platform. The crowd decided to group itself directly in the path that I had picked out. They ended up going to the foot end of the platform and then got it into position. This required multiple turns and took a little bit longer than if they had been able to go the other way. Oh, well, adapt on the fly. The team moved off and the LT took up her position. The Chaplain read some passages and said a few words. Then both sons took turns saying a few things about their father.
The Chaplain then turned the ceremony over to the LT. She moved into position and I saluted in sync with her. The gun salute went much better than last week. Four of five rifles fired all three shots. The same rifle that failed to feed last week, failed again today. I found out later that it failed to feed yesterday, too. We're going to have to get the armoror do a better job of checking it. She keeps telling us that it works and we keep telling her it doesn't.
The team marched to the casket and folded the flag. Today's flag was donated by the Salvation Army (they are donated by different organizations and the dimensions are slightly different with each type). The team did a good job of folding it tightly, but they didn't end up with much of a tail to tuck in. The two sailors that were on the end and did the folding had to unfold it a little and refold it even tighter in order to have enough to tuck. They just barely go all of the white to tuck in. They passed to flag forward and the team leader got the brass in with no problem. The LT took the flag to the widow and was able to say the line without any problems. She told me later that she couldn't look the woman in the eye, but she did manage to say the line without stumbling.
The Chaplain then concluded the ceremony and we marched off. At the van, I verified all rifles were clear and collected rounds and brass. We loaded up and went back to base. When we got to the unit, I had the team wipe the bolts down and then I once again checked that the rifles were clear and then we turned them in.
I make special mention of checking the clear rifles because yesterday, there was a problem. When the team prepared to leave yesterday, the NCOIC had them police up their brass. They came up two pieces short and couldn't find them anywhere. So, the NCOIC finally decided to just let it go. They loaded up and came back. When they got to the armsroom, he got a phone call and had one of the other soldiers supervise the turn in. Well, when the Army stores weapons, we put the selector on Semi and pull the trigger. This way, if the rifles are stored for a long period of time, there is no pressure on the trigger mechanism. Well... they found one of the missing rounds... yep, it was still live and in the chamber. Fortunately, no one was hurt. We use blank rounds, but the powder still discharges through the barrel and can cause injury. The 1SG (not ours - the armsroom is in E and F Co's building) came running in wanting to know what was going on. They checked the other weapons and the other missing round was chambered in one of them.
So, that NCOIC got a phone call last night and he had to go see Top today with our overall NCOIC. And I was ordered to personally check each rifle before we got in the van and again before they were turned in. That really wasn't too much of a problem, though, since I was already in the habit of doing that...