Does anyone know the current procedures for burial of vets? I've heard that with the army overcommitted, taps is being played as a cassette over a loudspeaker
I can help out concerning taps. Yes that was a ghastly practice of having a soldier show up to a vets funeral with a boom box. The "electronic trumpet" is only a marginal improvement. My understanding is that enough people had to endure the spectacle of listening to taps from a boom box at Grandpa's funeral that somebody did something about it. Congress has authorized civic groups such as Boy Scouts to train and play taps using a real bugle.
The volunteers are currently undergoing training and will begin playing at funeral services beginning July 4, 2004. What I don't know is what type uniform they will wear. My hope is that in such capacity, they will wear an official uniform such as worn by Civil Air Patrol or other auxilliary units.
When I am not available, one of the members uses the digital trumpet. As he says, the commander orders the bugler to "sound Taps", not "play Taps". The other day for Memorial Day we went round to a dozen cemeteries and town halls. The commander wanted me to play "echo" trumpet to the digital trumpet. Talk about pressure. There I was through out the day playing behind a computerized recording of probably the best rendition of Taps the designers could find. But it worked out okay.