FAUX, FAUX, FAUX, REAL:

A Call to Honor (LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV, November 11, 2002, NY Times)

My father died two years ago. He was a veteran of two wars, in Korea and Vietnam, and for reasons of his own, he didn't want the military funeral he was entitled to. But Veterans Day seems like a good time to honor his service to his country with a story about his lifelong love of the bugle call, taps.

As a boy, my father learned to play the bugle from the bugler in my grandfather's horse cavalry squadron. Today his bugle rests on its tarnished, dented bell atop my son's bedroom dresser; on the wall of the room is a photograph of a mounted Cub Scout Pack at Fort Meyer, Va., taken in 1931. My father, a tiny figure on a giant horse, holds the bugle against his thigh. The bugle reaches up to his shoulder, almost, and looks half as big as he is. I recall him telling me how proud he was when my grandfather finally agreed to let him play taps as a duet with the squadron bugler at lights out and cavalry funerals. [...]

I'm glad my father isn't around to witness the latest technological twist on a fine old Army tradition. With faux buglers playing faux taps on faux bugles, the only real thing left at military funerals will be the honor of the dead.

Amen, brother. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 17, 2002 12:52 PM