My teeth chattered ith my gums, lips and the entire inside of my mouth, lost all sensations. It was as if an invisible dentishattered, and my body trembled ― uncontrollably. Minutes before, the sides of my jaws, along wt has injected them with huge doses of Novocain. Moreover, the coldness was spreading. It was beginning to penetrate my forehead, creating the onset of an exploding migraine. I felt bone chilling cold, and I was worried ― standing there in zero degree weather, with a wind chill factor of 20 degrees below zero.
Earlier that morning, local weathermen had advised Chicago’s residence on the precautionary steps for surviving this type of weather: “Stay indoors as much as possible,” they said. “When going outdoors, be sure to bundle-up and cover all exposed skin,” they warned.
I had been standing ― outdoors, at this gravesite in St. Joseph Cemetery for about 30 minutes, and the freezing, cold conditions, which stabbed repeatedly through my body, like a switchblade, were continuing to have more troubling affects on me. Now, for example, there were no feelings in either leg below my knees; I actually felt levitated. It was only by looking down that I could assure myself that my lower legs and feet were still connected to by body. Yet, most troubling was the fact that the biggest of my problems was still to come: In approximately 45 minutes, I would be required to raise the trumpet, that I held cradled in my left arm, and begin playing Taps ― this would require taking my lips, which were numb, and begin blowing through my trumpet’s mouthpiece, whose temperature was colder than ice.
Oh, how I longed right then for the normal everyday military funerals ― the ones I had nicknamed B Flat funerals. Very early in my career, I learned the importance of researching “the cause of death,” because why and how the deceased died often determined the types of events that are likely to transpire during the funeral.
B Flat funerals were the most common, everyday funerals in the 80s. These types of funerals were isolated events: soldier killed in car crash, marine killed in training accident, sailor killed in bar fight, army private committed suicide, etc. In these cases, the military installation, where the deceased was stationed, would contact the military installation that is nearest to the deceased’s hometown, and request an honor guard unit for the funeral. In turn, the hometown installation would assemble an honor guard unit, consisting of six pall bearers, to carry the body; a seven-men firing squad, to fire three rifle volleys; a chaplain; a bugler; and an officer in charge, most often a captain or a lieutenant.
On the day of the B Flat funeral, the honor guards, working in concert with the local funeral home, leaves the military installation early enough to insure that the pall bearers, the chaplain, and the officer in charge arrive at the funeral home 45 minutes to an hour before the start of the services, and to ensure that the firing squad and the bugler arriving at the grave site a few minutes later for the purpose of rehearsing.
Shortly before the end of the church service, the funeral home dispatches the flower van, carrying the wreaths, to the gravesite, where its driver notifies the bugler and the firing squad that the funeral procession will be arriving in a few minutes.
On cold days when the temperature is below zero, the flower van driver’s early warning allows the firing squad and the bugler ( who needs to stay warm for obvious reasons) to sit in their heated army van until the last possible minute ― when the funeral procession is a few minutes away from the cemetery. Numb lips, below zero trumpet mouth pieces, levitation, stabbing pains, migraines, and uncontrolled trembling never occur during B Flat funerals. Instead, at the last possible minute, the bugler subjects himself and his trumpet to the elements, and this allows him to be warm enough to give a wonderful, mistake-free rendition of Taps.
This funeral, today, at St. Joseph Cemetery was radically different to a B Flat funeral; it was far more special and far more stressful. Over the years I’ve nicknamed this type of funeral a High Visibility funeral.
High Visibility funerals occur when large numbers military personnel are killed ― unexpectedly, and their deaths receive widespread, national news coverage by newspapers, and radio and television stations. This particular type of funeral worries military leaders, who believe that the lesson learned in Vietnam was “the press can be manipulated, but it cannot be trusted to tell the truth.” In the eyes of military leaders –back in the 80s, the journalists that made up the national press were simply a group of reporters who were always closely scrutinizing the military for the sole purpose of finding fault with it. Therefore, (military leaders thought), all events that were certain to receive press coverage needed to be carefully planned, and meticulously micro-managed. Nothing was left to chance. The best, brightest and most experienced personnel were assigned to these events. And that was the case today.
On Thursday, December 12, 1985, which was a few days before the funeral at St. Joseph, a group of soldiers, Task Force 3-502, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, were returning from their duty with the Multinational Force and Observers in the Mideast, when the civilian aircraft that was bringing them back to the United States crashed in Gander, Newfoundland. It killed 248 of them, including the soldier, whose death I was honoring. (Although I didn’t know it at the time, I would encounter other High Visibility Funerals in the upcoming years: Marines’ deaths in a Beruit bombing, soldiers’ deaths in a similar bombing in a barracks in Reihard, Saudi Arabia, and the sensational deaths of soldier and civilians at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and the World Trade Center in New York, New York.)
High Visibility funerals were stressful and difficult because of the television coverage and added scrutinizes they received. This funeral for a fallen soldier in Task Force 3-502, along with the other members of the task force that I later buried, were especially discomforting to me because the surviving soldiers of the task force, including their officers and their chaplains, traveled to the home towns of their fallen comrades, and served as the honor guards for their funerals. This reminded me of the funerals I performed in combat; it was like reliving Viet Nam all over again, except the funerals in Viet Nam were slightly worst.
The funeral in Viet Nam were the most difficult to perform for several reasons. First, they were performed in the mist of a war with mortar, rockets, and fire fights occurring everywhere. Second, the funeral services were usually performed for many soldiers who died in the same fire fight, bombing, or engagement with the enemy; the soldiers at the funeral services were their surviving comrades. And finally, I always knew that a day or two later, I would return to the same location and participate in the funeral services for comrades, who buried their comrades, a couple days earlier. I also knew that this pattern would repeat itself every day throughout the divisions in Viet Nam.
The Hearst and the rest of the funeral precession appeared at the entrance to St. Joseph Cemetery. This meant that I would be playing “Taps” in 15-20 minutes, so I decided to take a risk: I carefully removed my trumpet’s mouthpiece and placed it entirely in my mouth, hoping that my breath would make it warm enough for my lips to vibrate on. Then I unbutton my army jacket and carefully slip my trumpet in my jacket and tucked it under my left arm pit. Lastly, I placed my right palm over my mouth to protect it from the cold and chilling wind, and I began to slightly rock back and forth to increase the blood circulation throughout my body. When the firing squad fired their first volley, I carefully removed my trumpet from under my coat, reassembled its mouthpiece, blew warm air through the trumpet until I heard the command, “Firing Squad, Present Arms,” which was my signal to begin playing Taps.
I played it flawlessly, but it was difficult and sad, and especially discomforting. Several members of the honor guards had tears in their eyes, including the officer in charge, and I empathized. On the way home from the funeral however, I thought about other memorial ceremonies, when I played Taps, but the occasion were celebrations of human achievement.
In tomorrow’s blog, Every Day was Memorial Day When I Played Taps, Part2, I will share some of them with you.
