Old Guard, Army Honor Guard, Navy, Marine, Air Force, Coast Guard - Honor Guards

Self ^ | March 6, 2010 | Self

[Graybeard58]

Any former members of the Army Old Guard, Navy, Marine, Air Force, Coast Guard - Honor Guards, who participated in the funeral of President John F. Kennedy and who would be interested in collaborating on an article to be posted in the future by F.R. member "shove_it", either as a "reply" or simply to relate some of your experiences to be included, are respectfully requested to notify, by FReepmail or a reply on this thread, to shove_it or Graybeard58.

If you know of a member who has served in the aforementioned capacity, please ping them to this thread.

[Graybeard58]

Ping.

[basil]

Ping for later....

[Gay State Conservative]

Although I can only vaguely picture the coverage of the funeral,etc,I can't see how there’d be more than a few dozen uniformed members of the Armed Forces who participated directly.Anyone with strong knowledge can certainly set me straight on this if need be.

[Graybeard58]

participated directly.

A lot depends on what you mean by "directly". If you mean the 8 bearers,4 color guards, 7 firing party members and however many jet pilots were flying over that day,then your assessment of a "few dozen" is probably close.

If you would include all military that were in the funeral cortège, the ones who stood lining the walk ways at the White House and capitol rotunda for however many days(and nights)preceding the funeral plus lining the streets of the funeral route to Arlington, it would probably be in the thousands.

I am in the following picture Not one of the bearers), did I directly participate

The Air Force had a minimum of 300, I suspect the Army had many times that number.

[Gay State Conservative]

Fair enough...I stand corrected.I was a mere pup when JFK was killed...so young,in fact,that my most vivid memory of those few days (apart from the moment I first learned of his death...weird story behind *that*) is being ticked off by the fact that there was nothing good on TV that *whole* weekend.That's how clueless *I* was.

[Gay State Conservative]

And BTW...yes,I’d say that you participated directly.A very moving photograph,indeed.