Entertainment, Music - Army Times

Keeping ‘Taps’ live

Tom Day first performed “Taps” at a veteran’s funeral in 1950 as a button-eyed 10-year-old.

Nearly six decades and more than 5,000 funerals later, Day, a former Marine, is still at it, performing at several funerals, parades or patriotic-themed events a week.

And he’s hardly alone. His nonprofit group, Bugles Across America, enlists a force of more than 6,100 volunteers to perform live renditions of “Taps” at memorial services for veterans across the country in place of a recording of the song that would otherwise be used.

“When you’re finished and the family comes over and gives you a handshake and a hug, you can’t describe the feeling that you have for what you have just done for that family by playing live ‘Taps,’ and they didn’t have to resort to a recording or something like that,” he said.

Day, 69, of Berwyn, Ill., outside Chicago, founded his group in 2000 after legislation authorized the use of a recorded version of the solemn 24-note song at military funerals if a live bugler wasn’t available. The legislation was prompted by the military drawdown of the 1990s, which had left too few live buglers in the ranks to accommodate all veterans’ funerals.

Today, Bugles Across America is one of many veterans service organizations helping to support funerals for an estimated 650,000 veterans who pass away each year.

“He has a great organization,” said Mark Ward, the Pentagon’s deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy, and program manager for military funeral honors. “We certainly welcome their support.”

Standard funeral honors include a detail of at least two uniformed service members — one a member of the veteran’s branch of service — to fold and present the flag to the next of kin and to play “Taps,” either live or a recording.

The Defense Department provided funeral honors to nearly 200,000 veterans last year. About 74 percent featured the use of a “ceremonial” or digital bugle with an electronic device in the bell that plays a recorded version.

Although the bugler only appears to be playing the song, “it’s much more dignified than a stereo recording,” Ward said.

Still, the idea of playing any form of recording of “Taps” at a veteran’s funeral is upsetting to some. Eileen St. Clair, of Burr Ridge, Ill., said she was “shocked and appalled” at the practice, and was glad Day was able to perform at a recent memorial service for her father, Richard Schoeneman, a World War II veteran.

She said Day performed “Taps,” folded and presented the flag, and fired three rounds from a rifle. She said he also gave family members a memorial plaque and “Medal of Valor” coins.

“It was very moving, very wonderful,” she said. “My mother keeps talking about it.”

Day, who served in the Marines and later in the Navy Reserve, said he tries to model his ceremonies after those at Arlington National Cemetery. He has more than two dozen outfits and dresses in the uniform of the service of the deceased veteran.

But his attempts to strive for authenticity haven’t always been met with praise.

Last year, Day said, he removed chevrons bearing a lyre — the insignia of The President’s Own U.S. Marine Band — from his uniforms after he received an e-mail from a major with the band who told him he needed to wear the proper chevrons with crossed rifles instead. Day acknowledges that he never served in The President’s Own.

“I don’t want to be controversial,” Day said. “I just said, ‘OK, major, you got it.’ ”

A retired mortgage banker in civilian life, Day said he spent about $25,000 of his retirement money to build Bugles Across America. Married to his second wife, Donna, he has two children, Eric, 39, and Julie, 27, and remains active in the community.

Kelly Kilbribe, a 12-year-old sixth-grader at Kuemper Catholic School in Carroll, Iowa, is one of the youngest volunteers with Bugles Across America. She has performed “Taps” on her B-flat trumpet at several funerals since last year and has encouraged her 24-year-old brother, William, to volunteer, as well, so they can perform “Echo Taps,” in which one bugler plays the tune slightly behind the other, creating an echo effect.

Kilbribe said she appreciates the opportunity to take part in Bugles Across America and give something back to veterans.

“Knowing that they have fought for our country and knowing that I’m doing something for them is cool,” she said.