Honoring soldiers, military vets preside over funerals

ShareThis

The voice cracked over the radio Gary Helmick carried in his right hand. The honor guard quieted.It was time.Minutes later, a sedan pulled into the driveway of Shelter 2 at Tahoma National Cemetery, a few miles southeast of Seattle. Seven men with rifles stood at attention. The officer of the day stood stone-faced behind them. All wore gray slacks, white shirts, blue jackets and white helmets. Three others across the driveway offered white-gloved salutes as family members of an Air Force veteran exited their car and took their seats before a flag-draped coffin. A bugler licked her lips and readied herself to play on a nearby snow-covered knoll.The Key Peninsula-based honor guard from the Veterans of Foreign Wars District 4 prepared to provide full military burial honors. The men, mostly Vietnam War-era service members, preside over 100 such services each year. The number is steadily increasing as World War II, Korea and Vietnam vets pass on. Honor guard members receive no government funding, no pay. They do it as a patriotic duty for those who served the United States.The memorial service in late March began with the playing of the Air Force anthem. Helmick, the unit commander, explained the symbolism of the flag and eulogized the deceased. Chaplain Karl Bonn read from the book of Ecclesiastes. Helmick performed a final roll call, repeating the deceased's name three times.He ordered the rifle squad to shoot three volleys. Seven men cocked their M-1s, aimed toward the sky and fired. The gunpowder blast and the echo from the brass shells hitting the pavement pierced the air and quieted the chirping birds. The rifle squad fired two more volleys. The bugler played taps.A three-person unit from the Air Force folded the flag and presented it to the widow. Helmick handed the family a card from his unit, a letter from the cemetery and bullet casings from the rifle salute. A brassy rendition of "Amazing Grace" filtered through the air. Helmick concluded the ceremony with a reading of the Airman's Creed. He then leaned in close to the ear of the widow."Our job today," he said softly, "is to make your sad day just a little bit happier."FOR THE FAMILIESThe grieving family's car was leaving the cemetery grounds when the honor guard rushed toward Shelter 1. A memorial service for a former soldier would begin soon, and the guard needed to be in place when the mourners arrived.The members work with teams sent from the active-duty military. Each family decides what segments of the service they want. Some decline the rifle salute. Others shy from bugling or Scripture.Several traditions, though, never change. Protocol dictates much of the ceremony, down to the direction the deceased's head faces during casket services.Green draping covers all but one of the chairs. The one draped in red is in the center of the front row. That's where the person who receives the folded American flag after the ceremony sits. "We've been doing this for a while, and you'd think we'd have everything covered," Bonn said with a laugh. "But there's always just a little something different each time."'WE'LL ALWAYS DO IT'Sometimes dozens of people cram the shelters and spill into the driveways for services. But often, the dozen or so members of the honor guard outnumber the mourners, Helmick said.Last summer, the group performed a full funeral with no one in attendance.Police officers - Helmick wasn't told which city - had discovered the body of a homeless man. The former soldier had a VA card in his wallet. The police department arranged for a burial at Tahoma."Am I going to do the funeral?" Helmick remembers one of the active-duty soldiers asking."Yeah," he responded, "we're gonna do the whole military funeral.""But there's nobody here," the soldier said."I don't care," Helmick answered. "We're gonna do the funeral. He's here. The body's entitled to that honor."E-mail Scott Fontaine at scott.fontaine(at)thenewstribune.com.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)