OT: Taps May Not be "Live" at Vets Funerals Anymore

So sad that a post about one of the militaries most sacred traditions is nothing more to you than a chance to spout off your political ideology. Have you no shame man?

The military and many vet organizations are working very hard to give each vet a decent farewell. As stated we are losing our vets at the rate of 15 to 18 hundred every day. Included in that roll call of vets are many of the buglars that were there before to honor their comrades.

When or if you ever attend such a ceremony and are moved by it, you need to be aware of the many hours these honor gaurds spend practicing. The vetern organization honor gaurds are formed by the members of the organization often at their own expense donating their time and money to honor their comrades, and in so many cases their friends.

No there isn't anything really like a live buglar and a firing squad to render honors. Taps played on a boom box isn't the same. I've heard the electronic bugal and it is close, very close. My post lost it's buglar several years ago, a pearl harbor survivor. I doubt very much if he would mind if we had used one of the electronic bugals as we had no buglar and had to resort to a boom box. The pity as he had played for so many others.

I'm in my late fifties now, on oxygen and many of my brother vets aren't much better off. But stand we will, in the hot sun or in the snow, stifly at attention as we can manage, many with tears in our eyes to honor our comrades, our brothers, our friends.

Reply to
ARMDCAV
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I'm in my late fifties now, on oxygen and many of my brother vets aren't much

Amen, brother. I don't get to Washington as often as I'd like, but when I do I take time to visit Arlington and the Vietnam Wall. I have yet leave the Wall after visiting friends without tears in my eyes. In Western New York, the different Veterans' Groups are starting to pick up the slack at military funerals and have been for a few years now.

-- John ___ __[xxx]__ (o - ) --------o00o--(_)--o00o-------

The history of things that didn't happen has never been written - Henry Kissinger

Reply to
The Old Timer

So true my brother. To many it's just a piece of ground, another monument to the past. The traditions have no meaning to them, they are not their traditions. To the few who will stand there with tears on their cheeks and far away looks in their eyes, they are memories. To some it is the memory of their comrades who are named and of comrades not seen for so very long and of those who faces still burn in their memories but their names long since forgotten. To others it's a son or daughter or a sibling. And you know what? Sometimes I don't weep for them, I weep for me. Not just for their sake but mine to. I'm here, I'm alive and their not here to share it with me.

Let the bugles blow and the drums beat, and the guns to fire their vollly's. Let everyone know that another son, a veteran has passed this way and will never pass again.

Reply to
ARMDCAV

People without traditions are hollow - they have no soul.

Hold fast to your memories; they and your honor, are all that you'll be allowed to take with you when you journey on to join our comrades. And while you are still here, as long as you remember, and I remember, then we keep these men and women alive. No one is truely dead until they have been forgotten.

-- John ___ __[xxx]__ (o - ) --------o00o--(_)--o00o-------

The history of things that didn't happen has never been written - Henry Kissinger

Reply to
The Old Timer

I was the regimental bugler for the

21st infantry regiment of the 24th inantry division in Japan after leaving Mindanao when WWII ended. The article has caused me to work on my lip and do what has to be done in order to let me do the proper thing for my comrades they deserve the real thing. Thanks for the thread it made me realize what is important in life. If I can still do it I will.

Infantry Queen Of Battle

Reply to
Marvin Reichman

Kim:

Your attempt at humor was tasteless.

Why don't you take all of your carefully honed rhetoric and use it for something useful? Maybe declare yourself as a candidate for Governor of California??

Rick Fluke snipped-for-privacy@blackfoot.net

Reply to
Unamodeler

Can't say as I've experienced that, however - my friend was subsequently interred at Arlington.

Not sure that that would have been a traditional honor for a Naval Aviator...but I do know that the roar of four jets overhead the Chapel at 2K AGL, one heading for the heavens, and the whole thing happening precisely as the last note of Taps (blown by a live buglar) is fading into the roar is going to be a pretty tough experience to beat, IMHO.

Reply to
Rufus

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