Posted on 03/28/2013 5:23:33 PM PDT by Kaslin
Marc Garcia is a trumpet player who moonlights as a bugler at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. He plays taps at the end of graveside services. If you have ever been to such a service, you know that the haunting notes of the melody provide an emotional end to the event.
Garcia contacted me recently to say that he and his fellow buglers have been replaced by a battery-operated bugle.
He wrote in an email: “When I sound live taps, I put all my spirit and soul into all 24 notes that I play, and that’s the same spirit and soul that our veterans gave to this country while serving. And now they are going to get a fake bugle? A live bugler adds that very important touch for the military service. To me, our veterans deserve the real thing and it’s a disgrace to present them with anything else!”
Buglers make $24.50 per service. That’s not excessive. They have to be at the grave site early, and sometimes the preachers carry on a while. Also, there is an honorary three-volley rifle salute, and the folding and presentation of the flag.
The rifle salute is done by a four-man team — three riflemen and a fourth man who gives the orders. (The fourth man now operates the battery-run bugle.) Generally, these teams come from veterans service organizations — VFWs or American Legion Posts. Garcia said the teams get $100 per service.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
Breaking down our country one brick at a time.
This is sickening, but the money for Obama’s Brotherhoods has got to come from somewhere.
The truth is that the costs he his talking about are so miniscule compared to the scope of federal spending that conservatives should jump on suggestions like this one, as long as we are allowed to make suggestions of our own.
I have no doubt that private charity would step in an pick up some of the cost. As for the rest, there actually IS some waste going on here. I have known paid reservists who only had one function: Attending military funerals. That one’s a bit of a head-scratcher for me. The armed forces is a bureaucracy. By definition, it wastes money through inefficiency.
This has to be on one of the support troops ping lists.
This is so vile.
$100 per service. So if we didn’t give the POS Palestinians 500 million, that would be 5 million funerals. F**k Bill McClellan.
McClellan is already waving his Vietnam service at his critics to silence them & place his views above questioning.
I’m a Vietnam vet so I guess I’m qualified to tell Mickey C. to go bleep himself & I hope his funeral is just as unattended as he seems to want for the rest of our veterans.
His politics & ideology need looking into IMO.
Laura Ingram is substituting for Bill O’Reilly this evening and she had that creep along with LT Col. Robert Maginnis. She gave that creep all the time to talk so that there was hardly any time Lt Col. Maginnis to respond. She really disappointed me
It sure is
I’m also a Vietnam vet and a former Marine (I disown McClellan from the brotherhood) and as far as I’m concerned, if I could have my way with him he wouldn’t need a funeral at all...they wouldn’t be able to find enough parts to bury.
I have for over 30 years played trumpet semi-professionally in various church and other organizations. A couple of years ago my daughter mentioned a group called “Bugles Across America” (I have also seen the name “Taps Across America”... don’t know if they are the same.) It seems the military was having trouble finding enough buglers to play taps at funerals, partly because of the large number of WWII and Korean War vets who were passing away.
She asked me at the time if I wanted to volunteer for this organization, but I said no, mainly because I felt uncomfortable ... I had myself never served (for medical reasons, I could not have).
But this disgusts me. I am going to go track down this organization.
I should have said “my daughter, musician and Staff Sergeant, USMC”.
Yes
Be sure to check the Post for a counter column I sent in. I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice.
The Silver Star Families of America will not stand by and let this crap go unanswered.
It would get loud. And violent.
Quite likely, one of us would be in need of a funeral by the time it ended.
Heh, heh! I like your attitude. Welcome home.
God bless the Marines!
:^)
The Air Force sent two men to my brother’s funeral. Taps was played from a CD.
At my father in law’s funeral there was a group of Navy reservists and a live bugler. It was at the National Cemetery in San Antonio. Hearses were lined up waiting to get in. They say it’s that way every day.
As both an active duty chaplain, a retired chaplain, and as a pastor in our area, I have witnessed the graveside honors without the bugler.
There are two reasons for this:
By far the number one original reason was that an adequate bugler could not be found for that time and that location. Remember that the veteran’s funerals are no longer required to have a military honor detail. That went away more than two decade ago, iirc. (They are available for certain types of veterans, I believe...retirees, recipients of certain medals, etc.) Therefore, veteran funerals mostly use local honor guards faithfully formed by area American Legion Posts, VFW, DAV, AmVets, etc. They do not always have an adequate bugler.
That is where the CD bugler originated. Then it was recognized, of course, that it was cheaper, so I’m sure that plays into gradually removing the bugler altogether.
We have a detail from Fort Carson and had one at Fort Riley that did funerals for free.
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