Area of Operation Da Nang, Republic of Vietnam

Cpl. Terry L. Ecker

L/Cpl Philip R. Curran

Sgt. Ramond R. LinK

Cpl. Robert H. Steele

Dong Ha, Republic of Vietnam

PFC. Bernard (Berny) M. Lusk

1. Funeral Honors Customs and Traditions
2. Arlington National Cemetery


FUNERAL HONORS  As with the military itself, our armed
 forces' final farewell to comrades is steeped in tradition and ceremony.

1.  Prominent in a military funeral is the flag-draped casket. The blue
 field of the flag is placed at the head of the casket, over the left
 shoulder of the deceased. The custom began in the Napoleonic Wars of the
 late 18th and early 19th centuries, when a flag was used to cover the
 dead as they were taken from the battlefield on a caisson.
2.  One will notice, during a military funeral that the horses that
 pull the caisson which bears the body of the veteran are all saddled, but
 the horses on the left have riders, while the horses on the right do
 not. This custom evolved from the days when horse-drawn caissons were the
 primary means of moving artillery ammunition and cannon, and the
 riderless horses carried provisions.
3.  The single riderless horse that follows the caisson with boots
 reversed in the stirrups is called the "caparisoned horse" in reference to
 its ornamental coverings, which have a detailed protocol all to
 themselves. By tradition in military funeral honors, a caparisoned horse
 follows the casket of an Army or Marine Corps officer who was a colonel or
 above, or the casket of a president, by virtue of having been the
 nation's military commander in chief.  The custom is believed to date back to
 the time of Genghis Khan, when a horse was sacrificed to serve the
 fallen warrior in the next world. The caparisoned horse later came to
 symbolize a warrior who would ride no more. Abraham Lincoln, who was killed
 in 1865, was the first U.S. president to be honored with a caparisoned
 horse at his funeral.
4.  Graveside military honors include the firing of three volleys each
 by seven service members. This commonly is confused with an entirely
 separate honor, the 21-gun salute. But the number of individual gun
 firings in both honors evolved the same way.
     a.   The three volleys came from an old battlefield custom. The
 two warring sides would cease hostilities to clear their dead from the
 battlefield, and the firing of three volleys meant that the dead had been
 properly cared for and the side was ready to resume the battle.
     b.  The 21-gun salute traces its roots to the Anglo-Saxon empire,
 when seven guns constituted a recognized naval salute, as most naval
 vessels had seven guns. Because gunpowder in those days could be more
 easily stored on land than at sea, guns on land could fire three rounds
 for every one that could be fired by a ship at sea.
     c.  Later, as gunpowder and storage methods improved, salutes at
 sea also began using 21 guns. The United States at first used one round
 for each state, attaining the 21-gun salute by 1818. The nation reduced
 its salute to 21 guns in 1841, and formally adopted the 21-gun salute
 at the suggestion of the British in 1875.

5.  A U.S. presidential death also involves other ceremonial gun
 salutes and military traditions. On the day after the death of the president,
 a former president or president-elect -- unless this day falls on a
 Sunday or holiday, in which case the honor will rendered the following
 day -- the commanders of Army installations with the necessary personnel
 and material traditionally order that one gun be fired every half hour,
 beginning at reveille and ending at retreat.
6.  On the day of burial, a 21-minute gun salute traditionally is fired
 starting at noon at all military installations with the necessary
 personnel and material. Guns will be fired at one-minute intervals. Also on
 the day of burial, those installations will fire a 50-gun salute --
 one round for each state -- at five- second intervals immediately
 following lowering of the flag.
7.  The playing of "Ruffles and Flourishes" announces the arrival of a
 flag officer or other dignitary of honor. Drums play the ruffles, and
 bugles play the flourishes – one flourish for each star of the flag
 officer's rank or as appropriate for the honoree's position or title. Four
 flourishes is the highest honor.
When played for a president, "Ruffles and Flourishes" is followed by
 "Hail to the Chief," which is believed to have been written in England in
 1810 or 1811 by James Sanderson for a play by Sir Walter Scott called
 "The Lady of the Lake." The play began to be performed in the United
 States in 1812, the song became popular, and it became a favorite of
 bands at festive events. It evolved to be used as a greeting for important
 visitors, and eventually for the president, though no record exists of
 when it was first put to that use.
8.  The bugle call "Taps" originated in the Civil War with the Army of
 the Potomac. Union Army Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield didn't like the
 bugle call that signaled soldiers in the camp to put out the lights and
 go to sleep, and worked out the melody of "Taps" with his brigade
 bugler, Pvt. Oliver Wilcox Norton. The call later came into another use as a
 figurative call to the sleep of death for soldiers. Another military
 honor dates back only to the 20th century. The missing-man formation
 usually is a four-aircraft formation with the No. 3 aircraft either
 missing or performing a pull-up maneuver and leaving the formation to signify
 a lost comrade in arms. While this can change slightly from
 service-to-service, and -- based on preferences of family members, below is the
 standard sequence of events for a military funeral at Arlington National
 Cemetery:

• The caisson or hearse arrives at grave site, everyone presents arms.
•  Casket team secures the casket, NCOIC, OIC and chaplain salute.
•  Chaplain leads the way to grave site, followed by casket team.
•  Casket team sets down the casket and secures the flag.
•  The NCOIC ensures the flag is stretched out and level, and centered
 over the casket.
•  NCOIC backs away and the chaplain, military or civilian, will
 perform the service.
•  At conclusion of interment service and before benediction, a gun
 salute is fired for those eligible ( i.e. general officers).
•  Chaplain concludes his service and backs away, NCOIC steps up to the
 casket.
•  The NCOIC presents arms to initiate the rifle volley.
•  Rifle volley complete, bugler plays "Taps."
•  Casket-team leader starts to fold the flag.
•  Flag fold complete, and the flag is passed to the NCOIC, OIC.
•  Casket team leaves grave site.
•  NCOIC, OIC either presents the flag to the next of kin, or if there
 is a military chaplain on site he will present the flag to the
 chaplain, and then the chaplain will present to the next of kin.
•  Arlington Lady presents card of condolences to the next of kin.
•  The only person remaining at the grave is one soldier, the vigil.
 His mission is to watch over the body until it is interred into the
 ground.
[Source: http://dva.state.wi.us/Ben_funeralhonors.asp Jul 07 ++]


ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY  The nation's shrine to its
 military dead had 6,785 funerals in the just-concluded fiscal year, an
 all-time record. Now, as the dying of the World War II generation peaks,
 the cemetery is so busy that despite careful choreography, people
 attending one funeral can hear the bugle and rifle salutes echoing from
 another. As a result, the cemetery is about to begin a $35 million expansion
 that would push the ordered ranks of tombstones beyond its borders for
 the first time since the 1960s. The Millennium Project has been in the
 works for years as the cemetery has grown busier, dead from the Iraq
 war have been laid to rest with the veterans of wars past, and visitors
 have flocked to the see the Tomb of the Unknowns and the graves of such
 figures as President John F. Kennedy. Timing at Arlington has become
 critical. Some of the funerals can be fairly elaborate, with a band, a
 procession and a horse-drawn caisson, and can take up to 2 1/2 hours.
 Others might last only 35 or 40 minutes. All must be meticulously
 scheduled to minimize distractions and avoid traffic tie-ups on the cemetery
 roadways.

     The Millennium expansion has involved, among other things, the
 sensitive transfer of 12 acres within the cemetery from the National Park
 Service's historic Arlington House, the onetime home of Robert E. Lee.
 The Park Service has lamented the likely loss of woodland and the
 cemetery's encroachment on the majestic hilltop home, which dates to 1802.
 The project, which focuses on the northwest edge of the cemetery,
 includes expansion into about 10 acres taken from the Army's adjacent Fort
 Myer and four acres of cemetery maintenance property inside the
 boundaries, officials said. The extra space would provide room for 14,000 ground
 burials and 22,000 inurnments in a large columbarium complex,
 officials said. The project comes on the heels of extensive work underway to
 utilize 40 acres of unused space in the cemetery, creating room for
 26,000 more graves and 5,000 inurnments. And there are plans for further
 outside expansion in the years ahead.

     The cemetery, established in 1864, covers more than 600 acres, and
 more than 300,000 people are buried there. The expansions are, in
 part, a response to the deaths of members of the country's World War II
 generation, about 16 million of whom served in the armed forces. The
 Department of Veterans Affairs says more than 3 million World War II
 veterans are alive. About 1,000 die each day. The department's National
 Cemetery Administration says the number of veteran deaths is peaking, at
 about 680,000 annually, and is expected to fall gradually to 671,000 in
 2010, 622,000 in 2015 and 562,000 in 2020. At Arlington, which is run by
 the Army, the steady death toll from Iraq and Afghanistan has added to
 the numbers, although the cemetery gets only about 11% of those cases.
 More than 400 members of the armed forces who have died in Iraq and
 Afghanistan have been buried there.

     The initial work, to be contracted through the Army Corps of
 Engineers, would control drainage into the new sections. Katherine Basye
 Welton, cemetery project manager for the Corps of Engineers, said the
 first contracts were to be awarded by this month, but because of inadequate
 bids, the work might not be awarded until the end of the year. The
 project is expected to unfold over the next 10 years with funding hoped
 for from Congress. But it has not thrilled everyone. Although the
 transfer of the Arlington House land from the Park Service was decreed by law
 five years ago, it still rankles there. The parcel, which could lose
 many of its trees, has not been logged since the Civil War. The cemetery
 also plans to acquire the Navy Annex in 2010 and demolish it in 2013,
 and move underground utility lines within the next year or so, to gain
 more space. The projects should keep the cemetery open through about
 2060. Meanwhile, the pace at Arlington remains brisk. The cemetery handles
 25 to 30 funerals a day. Some, involving cremated remains, are
 scheduled for next year. [Source: Washington Post Michael E. Ruane article 7
 Oct 07++]