Mohsen Abdul Hamid, the head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, leaves a meeting in Baghdad, Iraq Monday, May 23, 2005. U.S. troops detained Mohsen Abdul Hamid, the head of Iraq's largest Sunni Muslim political party, along with his three sons and four guards, during a dawn house raid Monday, May 30, 2005 in western Baghdad, according to a top party official and police. (AP Photo/Samir Mizban)
Iraq Suicide Bombers Kill 30 Near Hillah City Hall (Update3)
Guard Shot
Excerpt:
The Sunni party leader, Mohsen Abdel Hamid, was arrested at about 4 a.m. local time in a raid on his Baghdad home by U.S. soldiers who blew open the front door, shot a guard, and confiscated money and jewelry, party official Ammar Wajeeh said in a telephone interview. Hamid was hooded and treated ``in a very bad way,'' and his three sons were also held, Wajeeh said.
Hamid is being returned to his home after being interviewed, a U.S. military spokesman, Mayor Wes Hayes, said in a telephone interview from Baghdad.
``Following the interview it was determined that he was detained by mistake and should be released,'' the military said without providing details of the arrest, in a statement read by Hayes. Hayes said he didn't know what prompted the arrest.
Arrests of Islamic Party officials are ``common practice,'' with five or six party members apprehended by security forces every day, Wajeeh said.
The arrest drew condemnation from President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, who had called for Hamid to be released, AFP reported.
Bill Fisher, who started playing taps at services when he was in high school, stands ready to perform at a recent burial. Fisher is an honor guard member with American Legion Post 11 in Madera.
A call to horns
Buglers go out of their way to play taps at the burials of military veterans.
By Guy Keeler The Fresno Bee
(Updated Sunday, May 29, 2005, 7:10 AM)
Bill Fisher often goes unnoticed when people arrive for military burial services at San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery. He stands at attention with other honor guard members from American Legion Post 11 in Madera as a flag-draped casket is wheeled to the front of the committal shelter. He listens to words of tribute and then, as the rifle team prepares to perform a 21-gun salute, he slips away to a distant spot, where he usually is out of sight.
One, two, three volleys. The gunshots echo from the surrounding hills and are swallowed in silence. With all eyes on the casket, Fisher raises a golden trumpet to his lips and plays taps, each of the 24 notes forming an eloquent memorial, drifting into the stillness.
"It's meant to be a distant sound," he says afterward, explaining why he steps away from the honor guard to play the emotional bugle call. "It's very moving. It gives people the chills."
Something else that gives Fisher chills is the thought that some veterans may be laid to rest without the honor of a live performance of taps. With American veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam dying at a rate of more than 1,000 a day, there aren't enough buglers to play at every service when family members request military honors for their loved one.
By law, the Department of Defense must provide military funeral honors for veterans upon request. The honors include folding and presenting the U.S. burial flag and the playing of taps.
If a live musician cannot be found among the ranks of the regular armed forces, veterans' groups or civilian volunteer organizations such as Bugles Across America, taps is performed on a CD player or a push-button ceremonial bugle that looks like a real horn but emits a recorded sound.
"We do the very best we can, but we can't cover every request for military funeral honors with a live bugler," says Lt. Col. Douglas Hart, director of public affairs for the California National Guard.
Soldiers who die while on active duty are given priority for the assignment of live buglers at funerals. For retired veterans, it's often the luck of the draw. Live buglers are assigned whenever possible but may not always be available.
Fisher says there's a huge difference between an electronic rendition of taps and a live performance. Canned music is the same every time, he says. A live performance is filled with emotion. "People can tell when you're playing from the heart," he says. "They can sense it."
Taps can be played on a bugle, trumpet or cornet. The bugle is a valveless horn that does not have the flexibility and range of valved instruments.
Fisher, 73, learned to play trumpet as a high school student in Milwaukee, Wis., in the late 1940s. He was inspired to take up the instrument by his grandfather, Paul Rost, who was a trumpet player in Harry James' orchestra.
As his musical skills became known, funeral homes began asking Fisher to play taps at services for veterans. He continued the tradition while serving in the Air Force during the early 1950s, then was inactive for several years until he moved to Madera in 1991 and joined the American Legion honor guard.
Veterans deserve the honor of having a live bugler perform taps at their funerals, says Fisher.
Tom Day, of Berwyn, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, founded Bugles Across America five years ago to extend that honor to all veterans.
"I had been playing taps at funerals since 1950," he says. "But it bothered me to know there were funerals without live buglers. I decided we needed more volunteers."
Day set up a Web site to recruit musicians willing to play taps at funerals and to provide a way for families and funeral homes to contact buglers in their areas. Since its formation, Bugles Across America has signed up more than 4,000 volunteers in five countries who have played taps at more than 45,000 funerals.
"All you have to do is stand tall and be able to play a horn," says Day. "Our youngest bugler is 10, and our oldest is 98. Half are veterans and 450 are women. They're all doing their jobs as patriots."
Among the central San Joaquin Valley residents who belong to Bugles Across America are Brad Riley, 40, and Colleen Tudman, 25, both of Fresno; Daniel Gudgel, 52, of Lemoore; and Jimmy Waddell, 40, of Woodlake.
Riley, band director at Tranquillity High School, says there are plenty of musicians who could play taps, but funeral homes and families often don't know where to look for them. When he learned recorded music was being used for funerals, he joined Bugles Across America.
"A live performance is more respectful," he says. "It's more military. The big difference is emotion. With recorded music, you don't get that spirit and soul."
Gudgel, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, has been playing taps at military funerals off and on since he was a 16-year-old junior at Chowchilla High School. Like others with full-time jobs, he isn't able to respond to every request, but does an average of two funerals a year.
"The sound from a horn rings so much better than a recording," he says. "It adds a personal touch."
That personal touch includes the occasional broken note. Perhaps the best-known example, at least for people over 50, is the one played at the funeral of President Kennedy on Nov. 25, 1963.
Before a worldwide television audience of millions, Sgt. Keith Clark, principal bugler for the U.S. Army Band, began playing taps.
"Day is done ..." came the sound from his horn, floating into the chilly air at Arlington National Cemetery.
"Gone the sun ..." On the sixth note, the tone cracked.
William Manchester, writing about it later, described it as "like a catch in your voice, or a swiftly stifled sob."
Clark finished without a further slip.
"From the lake, from the hills, from the sky. All is well, safely rest, God is nigh."
Clark, who had played taps flawlessly hundreds of times, blamed the cold weather for the broken note.
Sometimes, buglers must struggle to control their emotions. Fisher says it's difficult to play taps for veterans he knows.
"Playing for my grandfather's funeral was the toughest," he says.
Even when playing taps for strangers, however, Fisher has to be careful not to lose his concentration. If he is in a position where he can see the family, he knows they will be dabbing tears while he plays. That's another reason it's good to stand out of sight of the mourners, he says.
Tudman, an accountant, says live music is so personal she cannot imagine a military funeral without it.
"My grandparents are veterans, and I'm the kind of person who wouldn't want a recording at their funerals," she says. "People who have served their country deserve live music."
"With a boombox, taps is done in less than 20 seconds," says Waddell, a computer technician who has been playing for funerals for a couple of years. "With a live performance, you can stretch it out. And the sound carries better."
Taps was created in 1862 by Union Gen. Daniel Butterfield as a replacement for Lights Out, the traditional day's-end bugle call of the Army of the Potomac. Other buglers picked up the call, and it gradually spread from brigade to brigade. By 1874, taps was officially recognized by the Army, and in 1891, it was designated the standard bugle call at military funerals.
"Taps adds the final exclamation point to the fact that somebody came to honor a veteran," says Day.
For more info on Bugles Across America or to find a bugler in your area, go to www.buglesacrossamerica.org.
