VFW Post 8495
Honor
Guard
Our
honor
guard
participates
in
civic
activities
in the town of Perinton
and
Monroe
County
and
includes
parades,
dedications, and memorials.
We
offer
funeral services for American military veterans including
sounding
of
Taps,
rifle
firing
squad
and, flag presentations when
requested
through
the
funeral
director.
changes
in
veterans
saluting
history of
taps
rifle firing at funerals
For those post members interested in joining
the
Honor
Guard,
see
any
Honor
Guard Member and fill out an application and turn it over by
dropping it
in the
Posts Honor Guard mail slot
Honor
Guard :
| P. Cammilleri -
President |
J.
Gropp
|
D. Crawford - Captain
|
W.
Kuhn |
| M. Cialini |
R. LaRose |
| D. Cronkite |
B. Mengel |
| G. Droney |
P.
Pierce |
| J. Durham |
F. Pittinaro - Chaplain |
| M. Fedele |
R. Polle
|
R. Fox
|
R. Sargent |
| R. Gill |
J. Schenkel |
| K. Gippe |
H. M. Smith |
R. Gough
|
P. Thurley |
R. Clark
|
V. Wahlberg Co-Captain
|
Changes
in Flag Saluting
In the Sep-Nov 2008 issue of Army Echoes there is an article which
states that
Retired
Military as well as veterans may render the hand salute regardless
whether they are in uniform or not.
The article is
as follows:
"Retired
Soldiers are Still Proud! Still Serving! Congress has put Still
Saluting into l
aw for Retired Soldiers and other veterans. The 2008
National Defense Authorization
Act (Public Law 110-181) changed Sect.
9, Title 4, U.S. Code, which covers "Conduct
during hoisting, lowering
or passing the flag." Following is that section of the U.S.
Code, as
reworded by the law change. Please share this information with veterans
and other retired military who don't get ECHOES.
"During the
ceremony of hoisting or lowering the flag or when the flag is passing
in a
parade or in review, all persons present in uniform should render
the military salute.
Members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are
present but not in uniform may
render the military salute. All other
persons present should face the flag and stand at
attention with their
right hand over the heart, or if applicable, remove their headdress
with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being
over the heart.
Citizens of other countries present should stand at
attention. All such conduct toward
the flag in a moving column should
be rendered at the moment the flag passes."
I think this is
worthy of the widest dissemination.
Frank Balik
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History of Taps:
The 24 note
bugle call known as "Taps" is thought to be a revision of a
French Bugle
signal called "Tattoo"., that notified soldiers to cease
an evening's drinking and return
to their barracks of garrisons.
It was sounded one hour before the bugle call that brought
the military
day to an end and by ordering the extinguishing of fires and
lights. The last
five measures of the tattoo resemble the modern
day "Taps".
The word "taps"
is an alteration of the obsolete word "taptoo" derived
from the Dutch
"taptoe" . Taptoe was the command -- "Tap
toe" -- to shut ("toe to") the "tap" of a keg.
The revision
that gave us present-day taps was made during America's Civil War by
Union General Danial Adams Butterfield, heading a brigade camped at
Harrison
Landing , Va., near Richmond. Up to that time. the U.S.
Army's infantry call to end the
day was the French final call,
"L'Extinction des feux". Gen. Butterfield decided the
"lights
out" music was too formal to signal the day's end. One day in
July 1862. he
recalled the tattoo music and hummed a version of it to
an aide, who wrote it down in
music. Butterfield then asked the
brigade bugler, Oliver W. Norton, to play the notes
and after
listening, lengthened and shortened them while keeping his original
melody
He ordered
Norton to play the new call at the end of each day thereafter, instead
of the
regulation call. The music was heard and appreciated by other
brigades, who asked for
copies and adopted this bugle call. It
was even adopted by Confederate buglers. This
music was made the
official Army bugle call after the war. but not given he name "taps"
until 1874.
The first time
taps was played at a military funeral may also been in Virginia soon
after
Butterfield composed it. Union Capt. John Tidball, head of
an artillery battery, ordered it
payed for the burial of a cannoneer
killed in action. Not wanting to reveal the battery's
position in
the woods to the enemy nearby, Tidball substituted taps for the
traditional
three rifle volleys fired over the grave. Taps was
played at the funeral of Confederate
Gen. Stonewall Jackson 10 months
after it was composed. Army infantry regulations
by 1891 required
taps to be played at military funeral ceremonies. Taps now is
played
by the military at burial and memorial services and is still
used to signal "lights out" at days end.
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Rifle
Firing
at Funerals
The practice of
firing three volleys over the grave originated in the
old custom of halting the fighting
to remove the dead from the
battlefield. Once each Army had cleared their dead, it would fire
three
volleys to indicate that the dead had been cared for and that
they were ready to fight again. The
fact that the firing party
consists of seven riflemen, firing these volleys does not constitute a
21 gun
salute. It is the three volleys, not the number of rifles.
Three volleys fired over the casket have
become a tradition to mean
that the dead have been cared for. It has evolved into a military
salute
for the deceased serving of country. Firing the three
volleys is one of the highest honors to give a
deceased military
veteran. Our nations highest honor is a flag draped over the casket,
folded
and presented. Tradition is to place three spent shell
casings inside the folded flag to prove now
and forever that the
deceased and his flag have had proper military honors. Nothing
else is to be
placed in the flag.
Honor
Guard needs new members:
Members of
the Post who would like to participate in the activities
of the Post's Honor Guard, please
give your name and phone number along with the days you would be
available to participate in our
activities in the Honor Guard mail slot at the post
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