Push Button Bugle to Play Taps at Military Funerals

[Pert_UK]

"Chronically short of musicians for military funerals, the Pentagon has approved the use of a push-button bugle that plays taps by itself as the operator holds it to his lips.

Only some 500 buglers are on active duty on any one day, but about 1,800 people with military service die across the country each day and are eligible for honors ceremonies, Air Force Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said Thursday.

So the Defense Department worked with private industry to invent the "ceremonial bugle," which has a small digital recording device inserted into its bell to play the music.

A member of the honor guard at the funeral simply presses a button on the device. A five-second delay gives the guards time to raise the instrument to their lips as if they are going to play it. "

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/09/04/digital.bugle.ap/index.html

Very, very odd.

P.

[roguevalley]

1. its probably a good idea but it marks the official date of our

official societal insanity. <G>

[LizW]

2. I saw a tv news report on this some time ago

and they were actually having to resort to boom boxes at times. I guess the "auto-bugle" is an improvement over that.

[goforit]

3. OMG!!!!!..........This is unbelievable!!!

There are so many musical highschool and college
students that would be proud to blow a few notes at
a respectable man of arms funeral!!!

This is so sad!!!(a total disregard for the life served)

This must have been a top priority of W!!

[Karenina]

12. a total disregard for the life served...

and an invalidation of the living. Sounds about right. NOT. :eyes:

[oneighty]

4. Better silence

than the fake bugle or poor tinny recordings.

180

[PartyPooper]

7. I agree. This is VERY tacky.

Faux doesn't cut it with military funerals.

[kskiska]

5. Can you just imagine the embarrassing mishaps

using this sort of device? Suppose the "bugler" trips and falls, or has a coughing fit and the bugle goes off all by itself? Worthy of Candid Camera. Really bad news. My dad is planning on being buried at Arlington. I hate the thought of having to deal with this farce at a time like that.

[BiggJawn]

6. "Taps" is NOT that hard to play!

Hell, even *I* can play it, and I'm a woodwinds guy!

[oneighty]

8. I had offered at our VFW

to play taps on my trombone.

Nope cannot do that either.

180

[fortyfeetunder]

10. Any beginning trumpeter can play this

When I decided to play my brother's trumpet one summer, I taught myself to play Taps..good exercise in lip training...any decent trumpet player can play this...

[TahitiNut]

9. From the same people who brought you ...

... the Push Button President. :shrug:

[DoNotRefill]

11. How disgusting....

eom

[Kolesar]

13. This reminds me of a scene from "Bill, the Galactic Hero"

(I understand that there is nothing funny about a military funeral.) This book was a pithy satire of Army life in the Troopers. Bill is recruited from his home planet by a recruiting sergeant accompanied by a splendid, gleaming one robot band playing a dozen instruments simultaneously. I loved the book twenty years ago.

http://www.sfsite.com/01b/bgh96.htm
...excerpt of a review...
This is not to say that the book is really all that funny, other than in a sort of "ouch -- that smarts" kind of way. Bill is a big, dumb farm boy, minding his business on a distant world when he is shanghaied by a passing recruiting officer and his band of gleaming robots. Before you know it, Bill finds himself in a Catch-22 world of rules and regulations, where it's almost impossible to get ahead and where the slightest infraction can earn you the enmity of your commanding officer. And if that officer happens to be Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang with his artificial two-inch canines, you might as well be dead.

But Bill is a regular Candide, and no matter how deep the doo-doo into which he falls, he somehow manages to come out smelling, if not exactly like a rose, than at least not quite bad as the doo-doo itself. Harrison manages some nice Flash-Gordonish SF riffs in the novel, which was originally published in 1965 and has worn better than some other books I can think of from that era. Bill The Galactic Hero has proved popular enough to have spawned half a dozen or so sequels, co-authored by the likes of the aforementioned Robert Sheckley, Dave Bischoff and others. It's an easy read, and if Bill himself is really not all that interesting as a character, the situations are clever -- Harrison is too good a writer to be boring. Bill The Galactic Hero is a good light read, interesting for those who want to see how the funny stuff was handled before Douglas Adams got hold of it.

[R Hickey]

24. Harry Harrison also wrote the book behind "Soylent Green"

The book behind Soylent Green was called "Make room, Make Room" which wasn't satire, but was a very accurate portrait of what the world will be like in about fifty years.

Bill the Galactic Hero" was an excellent book, although I thought it seemed to poke fun at the British military more than the US's.

Harrison also wrote the "Stainless Steel Rat" and a bunch of other "Stainless Steel Rat" books. These books were excellent in their iconoclasim.

Harrison is unique in that he wrote satire of current society, while accurately following social and techological trends to create realistic fucked-up future worlds.

[Kolesar]

32. The Deathworld series was pretty good too.

I read a lot of Harry Harrison back in the 1980s. I just loved his cynical style. Then I got burned out.

[susu369]

14. All about saving money

Don't spend any money on the little guy - typical of the mindset of Whi$tle A$$ and his greedy cabal. They think they are so clever.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

15. That's as insulting as if they programmed their Nokia phone to

ring "Taps." I wonder if the electric bugle's made by GE or a Halliburton subsidary...

[ramapo]

16. No surprise

Just another sad step in our cultural decline as musicians are replaced by electronics.

[no one in particular]

17. Will they accept long-haired buglers? Where do I sign up?

Used to play at a horse racetrack and have been playing the trumpet for 20 years. Unfortunately, they'd probably hold my nearly waist length hair against me.

Under the Bush* misadministation, this is bound to be a growth industry.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. Yep...yet another example of the leaner, meaner Army. Emphasis on "mean".

[cmd]

19. I used to do funeral Taps in high school

Any time we were needed two (first part and echo) of us would be sent to the cemetary for Taps. I always considered it a great honor.

[InkAddict]

20. Everything about this Admin is Phoney

sacrifice of life in personal service to the Commander-in-Thief is now certain dead reality

More: hey, maybe he could create a job or two if he went with robotic buglers too.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. They Did That At My Dad's Funeral

He was a Korea era vet. When he died, he was buried at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, and the honor guard used a recorded version of taps.

So, they've been doing this a while now, for vets. Of course, dying and dying in the line of duty would appear to be two very different things.
The Professor

[Jane Eyre]

23. My dad's funeral too

My father died in 1989 and the local VFW's came out to do the honors for a fellow WWII vet. This is in a small town in NC. The VFW provides their services for any veteran's funeral. They did a 21-gun salute, then had a recorded version of Taps on a boombox. I was quite surprised when they brought out the boombox. I thought it was on the tacky side, but I appreciate the VFW's willingness to honor one of their own even if they lacked the resources to provide a real bugler.

I am not opposed to the digital bugler, but I prefer the idea of getting high school buglers for these events. What a wonderful way for a younger generation to honor those who have gone before, and what a wonderful way to recognize young musicians! With the pending demise of music education in our schools, this is a nice way of showing the importance of music and musical training in our society.

[ProfessorGAC]

25. At Abe Lincoln. . .

. . .the burial ceremony pavilions are wired for sound and the Taps doesn't require a boombox. Just push a button. I guess that pretty efficient.

However, the gun saulte was ALSO RECORDED! That's pretty weird, huh?
The Professor

[VolcanoJen]

30. Can't have Volunteer Buglers...

Military etiquette and tradition requires the bugler to be in uniform. Only currently-enlisted buglers are permitted to play TAPS at an official military burial.

I can't imagine this is happening at Arlington, of course... the Old Guard is a large regiment, and I'm confident they have plenty of buglers; they probably have the lion's share of active duty regimental musicians, as well they should...

You know, I think we may be reading this story a bit too critically. Recorded "TAPS" has been used at military funerals for a long, long time... this is simply an "improvement" on the illusion, isn't it? I suppose I'd prefer a uniformed soldier with a fake bugle to a damned boom box...

[moondust]

22. It's part of the BushCo assembly line.

They're trying to find a robot to present the flag to the widow.

[rocktivity]

26. JUST PLAY A GODDAM RECORDING, THEN!

Having someone "pretend" to play it is insulting. Hey, this would be a good job to outsource to a civilians! We could train a bunch of welfare recipients to play the bugle!


rocknation

[Nlighten1]

27. This is not out of the ordinary folks.

I was on funeral detail when I was a young soldier back in the 80's and we used the recorded bugle in all but ONE funeral.

[GinaMaria]

28. Program in Trumpet Voluntary

and it could be used for weddings and funerals :eyes:

Whenever I hear stories like this, I know it's someone's way of getting around a limit, but I can't help but think... Can't we do better than this?

[BadGimp]

29. This is exttremely depressing...

A defining moment in my lfe occured at the exact moment a bugler played taps at my father's funeral. I looked arounf the cemetary and was stunned to see how many American flags there were. I realized then how much of a true sacrafice so many had made to make this country as great as it was "then".

No they will fake it.

[jody]

31. I'm surprised they didn't give a no-bid contract to Halliburton and

privatize blowing Taps.

Next, AWOL will use the new process for converting bodies to oil. That's really serving your country down to the last drop.