Posted on 02/20/2005 9:53:25 AM PST by TheOtherOne
Elongated Rendition of Taps Will Highlight Bugler Scarcity at Vet Funerals
Published: Feb 20, 2005 BATH, N.Y. (AP) - Once the pastor intoned, "May he rest in peace," a Marine Corps honor guard lifted the flag off Thomas Wagner's casket and held it aloft. Right on cue, from an adjacent hilltop at Bath National Cemetery, there rose a stirring bugle call.
Played by an American Legion post chaplain, the Civil War dirge known as taps endures as a final salute to fallen veterans - most of whom, like Wagner, were warriors long ago.
"For the families of those who served, it adds a beautiful, somber tone, a feeling of finality," said Fran Look, a World War II paratrooper who performs at a dozen funerals each year and played at Wagner's ceremony.
With an average of 1,800 U.S. veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam now dying every day, along with a steady stream of casualties in Iraq, live renditions of taps at military funerals have become a relative rarity.
The 24-note melody is usually delivered digitally - via a compact disc player placed near the grave or, increasingly since 2003, a Pentagon-approved, push-button "ceremonial bugle" that anyone can mimic playing by raising it to their lips.
The armed forces have about 500 musicians who perform taps, but many of them have been dispatched to the Middle East. A few thousand civilian volunteers in the Bugles Across America group also fill in wherever they can.
But it's well known that there aren't nearly enough buglers to go around.
Now, to spotlight the scarcity and help address it, horn players are planning a dramatic musical performance, called the Echo Taps project.
Stretched across 41 miles between two national cemeteries in rural western New York, hundreds of musicians will play a cascading arrangement of taps on Armed Forces Day, May 21.
"Once the first bugler plays the first three notes, the second bugler will start and then, three notes later, the next," said Les Hampton, a Corning Inc. engineer who served on a Navy destroyer in the Vietnam War. "If we have a bugler every 10th of a mile, or 410 buglers, the rate of sound traveling through the valley would be 60 miles an hour and last 41 minutes."
The Echo Taps project's goals are to enlist more volunteer buglers, honor military service and raise the profile of America's 120 national cemeteries.
It's open to all brass horns, from trombones to mellophones. A mile-long span in Coopers Plains will be devoted to tubas - in memory of a tuba-loving soldier from the village who died young.
The song will start up at Woodlawn National Cemetery in Elmira and bind a string of small towns from Painted Post and Campbell to Savona and Bath. Organizers hope to get a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest line of brass instruments playing the same tune.
"Each bugler has to be within audible distance," Hampton said. "Where it's hilly, where we have a lot of bends in the roads and when we go through Corning, where there's a lot of traffic, we're going to have buglers closer."
Already, more than 500 musicians, some from as far off as California, have said they'll play. The more the better, said Hampton. "If we get 2,000, we will have them all in there."
The seed for the project was planted two years ago when two buglers happened to show up for the same funeral, and played a duet. Hampton and the honor guard commander, Gerry McDonald, came away impressed and wondered what a multi-instrument tribute would sound like.
Since 2000, families of all honorably discharged veterans have been entitled under a federal law to a two-person uniformed funeral honor guard, the folding and presentation of the flag and the playing of taps.
Staff Sgt. Allen Moon plays taps at up to 500 funerals a year as part of an honor guard burial detail with the Stratton Air National Guard base in Scotia, 15 miles from Albany.
The whole service is moving, he said. "But we'll see a lot where the whole mood will change when someone starts playing taps. That's when the memories of the veteran, and their service to the country, start to come back."
Bugles Across America, which was formed in suburban Chicago four years ago to recruit taps players, now has 3,800 people to call on nationwide. So far, they've performed at 45,000 funerals.
As the funeral for Wagner, who served with the Marines in Korea in the mid-1950s, quickly wound down on a sunny but 5-degree afternoon, bugler Look, an 80-year-old veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, emerged from his car wearing thick gloves with the fingertips cut off.
The solemn notes he played rolled down the hill, lined with white marble gravestones, and resonated through the 138-year-old cemetery where 13,000 veterans and their spouses lie.
Meantime, two Marines held the flag horizontally, then folded it with precision and presented it to Wagner's sister, Mary Keniston.
"These young men like Tommy felt moved to do their part," she said, "and to have a finale like this had a lot of meaning for all of us. It's a farewell with a lot of character."
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On the Net:
Echo Taps: www.echotaps.org
Bugles Across America: www.buglesacrossamerica.org
AP-ES-02-20-05 1234EST
My 80 year old mother was a rock throughout the nightmare that lasted for days. Even at the funeral she was remarkably strong.
But the first note of Taps at the cemetary sent her into a wail the likes of which I've never heard before or since.
It's a powerful piece because, while very simple, it has so much history and meaning.
Even thinking about the melody is enough to make me tear up.
That just reminded me of a book, I saw growing up at someone's house (can't even remember who's) and it had a great title. No idea what it's about. Title: Military justice is to justice as military music is to music
The U.S. Air Force has a web site where you can download ceremonial music, as played by their band. There's a version of "Taps" recommended for use at military funerals, and another version, "Echo Taps". The downloads are free (all formats) for personal use and no linking is allowed. I uploaded to my web site a copy of the standard funeral version and also a version of echo taps. Click the links below to listen or download.
Taps (690 kb .mp3 file)
Echo Taps (955 kb .mp3 file)
There are official versions of all the branches of the military, marches, official state functions, honors, and many others available for download at this web site. If you scroll to the very bottom, you'll see a link to download a special funeral honors version of "Amazing Grace" played on bagpipes.
Thanks...very cool.
D'oh! GMTA
< |:)~
Not only was he late, his post lacked all the style points that yours had.
Forget to add this:
http://www.echotaps.org
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