Calling all horns
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:26 am
Bugles Across America is looking for your help to play TAPS at military funerals. There is a shortage of qualified personel within the military who can provide a live redition of taps at services.
Approx 1000 veterans (mostly from WWII) are put to rest daily within the U.S.
http://www.buglesacrossamerica.org/welcome.php
to volunteer:
http://www.buglesacrossamerica.org/volu ... =volunteer
MajorFalcon92
COLUMBUS DISPATCH
THE SOUND OF RESPECT
Marine reservist takes pride in playing bugle for honored dead at special services
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Jeb Phillips
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
ERIC ALBRECHT | DISPATCH
Staff Sgt. Michael Penyak plays taps at the funeral of Lance Cpl. Kevin Smith in Springfield. Smith was killed by suicide bomber on March 21 in Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Michael Penyak stands 100 feet from the grave, holding the trumpet. The wind blows, the flags flap.
This has to be perfect, he is thinking.
He can't count the number of times he's played the 24 notes before. For veterans, for a police officer, for Memorial Days, for troops killed in war zones.
But he knew this guy. Penyak helped lead the Springfield recruiting office when Kevin Smith decided to join the Marines. He interviewed Smith and his father.
Penyak can't hear what the pastor is saying from this far back. He knows the cues, though.
For now, he's just standing, waiting to bring the trumpet to his lips, to play taps. To signal that Lance Cpl. Kevin Smith can rest.
Penyak is, as far as he knows, the only active-duty Marine bugler in central Ohio.
Some American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts can find a retired military bugler when they need one. A Web site, www.bugles acrossamerica.org, keeps a database of people.
Some posts rely on tape recorders. As a way to make that look a little better, the military began to distribute a cone two years ago that fits inside a bugle. The "bugler" pushes a button and raises the horn to his mouth. After a few seconds, taps starts.
From 100 feet away, it looks as if the person is playing the song live. Penyak hates this.
So whenever he's called - usually by someone he knows, who knows someone who has died - he takes off from his job as a recruiting counselor and plays. He never accepts money.
"It's an honor to do this," he said.
Penyak, 32, started playing the trumpet in sixth grade and marched with the Grove City High School band. He joined the Marines in 1992 after he graduated. He's now a full-time Marine reservist. He spends his days at the Columbus Military Entrance Processing Station, showing new Marine recruits how to fill out their paperwork and telling them which jobs they might want in the corps.
The day of Smith's funeral, March 31, is the busiest of the month. It's called "Mission Day" in recruiting jargon, the last possible time recruiters can make their monthly quotas. They push as many people through the station as they can.
Penyak began the day of Kevin Smith's funeral at 5:30 a.m. When he finished playing, he faced an hourlong drive back to Columbus to work for several more hours. But he had heard that Smith was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber on March 21, and he knew he wanted to play.
"No one called me to do this," he said. "I asked to."
The Marine honor guard, a reserve unit from Dayton, was already practicing when Penyak got to the Springfield cemetery just after 11 a.m. He was a little late. He had decided to go by the church first to watch part of the service.
The honor guard members were getting nervous waiting for him. "We've got a backup, just in case," a guard member said.
Penyak drove in a few minutes later, still more than an hour before the hearse would arrive. He learned of the backup and asked to see it.
A man in uniform stepped up, pressed a button at the end of the bugle he held and put it to his lips. The bugle played a tinny, slightly scratchy version of taps.
The man handed Penyak the bugle. Penyak pushed the button again and held the bugle at his side. It started playing. He put his trumpet to his lips and started playing along with it. When he tilted the other bugle down, the little black cone fell to the ground, still playing the song.
A veteran dressed mostly in red was watching. "The first time I used one of those, I had it drop out, too," he said.
The honor guard put away the bugle with the black cone.
There are several kinds of perfect taps. After a little warm-up near the grave, Penyak went through them.
The first is clear, unadorned, with a medium tempo. Penyak got through it flawlessly. Then there's a slower, more embellished way. He prefers that.
"I'm playing it with a lot of vibrato. I'm crescendoing in and out," he said after he finished a version that way. The notes trembled. Some you could hardly hear, some boomed.
Since Nov. 25, 1963, though, one perfect taps has been imperfect by design. The bugler at President Kennedy's funeral cracked the sixth note, as if he were crying. It has become tradition to crack the note now, especially if the people in the crowd are old enough to remember Kennedy.
Penyak went through another version and broke the sixth note. "You mess it up, you chalk it up to emotion," he said.
Taps is the emotional apex of a military graveside service. If you do not cry during it, you are not going to cry, Penyak said. The song probably began during the Civil War as the lights-out announcement, then morphed into the memorial call by the end of the war.
Penyak used to offer condolences to the families after he played, but he stopped. They found it too upsetting to talk to the man who had just broadcast that their relative had died.
This time Penyak would break his own rule. After he played his final version and after a bagpiper played Amazing Grace, Penyak would walk to a sitting Ronald Smith, Kevin's father. Penyak would drop to one knee.
When he rose, Penyak would look like the one who was keeping himself from crying. He would talk and sound as if he were choking back tears.
"I just said I was sorry for their loss," he would say.
But that would come later. He is standing 100 feet from the grave, holding the trumpet. The pastor says some words. Not far in front of Penyak, seven people in uniform hear a command to raise their rifles, and they fire three volleys each. Penyak raises the horn to his lips, arches his back a little and starts to blow. Day is done Gone the sun He doesn't clearly crack the sixth note. He'd say later that he hit it wrong. He cracked it a little, he said, but only he could tell. From the lake From the hills From the sky The 200 or so people have looked back to see who the bugler is and where he is playing. Now they turn again to the grave. Many bow their heads. Lance Cpl. Kevin Smith, 20, served his country. Now he's home. All is well Safely rest God is nigh.
[email protected]
Approx 1000 veterans (mostly from WWII) are put to rest daily within the U.S.
http://www.buglesacrossamerica.org/welcome.php
to volunteer:
http://www.buglesacrossamerica.org/volu ... =volunteer
MajorFalcon92
COLUMBUS DISPATCH
THE SOUND OF RESPECT
Marine reservist takes pride in playing bugle for honored dead at special services
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Jeb Phillips
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
ERIC ALBRECHT | DISPATCH
Staff Sgt. Michael Penyak plays taps at the funeral of Lance Cpl. Kevin Smith in Springfield. Smith was killed by suicide bomber on March 21 in Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Michael Penyak stands 100 feet from the grave, holding the trumpet. The wind blows, the flags flap.
This has to be perfect, he is thinking.
He can't count the number of times he's played the 24 notes before. For veterans, for a police officer, for Memorial Days, for troops killed in war zones.
But he knew this guy. Penyak helped lead the Springfield recruiting office when Kevin Smith decided to join the Marines. He interviewed Smith and his father.
Penyak can't hear what the pastor is saying from this far back. He knows the cues, though.
For now, he's just standing, waiting to bring the trumpet to his lips, to play taps. To signal that Lance Cpl. Kevin Smith can rest.
Penyak is, as far as he knows, the only active-duty Marine bugler in central Ohio.
Some American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts can find a retired military bugler when they need one. A Web site, www.bugles acrossamerica.org, keeps a database of people.
Some posts rely on tape recorders. As a way to make that look a little better, the military began to distribute a cone two years ago that fits inside a bugle. The "bugler" pushes a button and raises the horn to his mouth. After a few seconds, taps starts.
From 100 feet away, it looks as if the person is playing the song live. Penyak hates this.
So whenever he's called - usually by someone he knows, who knows someone who has died - he takes off from his job as a recruiting counselor and plays. He never accepts money.
"It's an honor to do this," he said.
Penyak, 32, started playing the trumpet in sixth grade and marched with the Grove City High School band. He joined the Marines in 1992 after he graduated. He's now a full-time Marine reservist. He spends his days at the Columbus Military Entrance Processing Station, showing new Marine recruits how to fill out their paperwork and telling them which jobs they might want in the corps.
The day of Smith's funeral, March 31, is the busiest of the month. It's called "Mission Day" in recruiting jargon, the last possible time recruiters can make their monthly quotas. They push as many people through the station as they can.
Penyak began the day of Kevin Smith's funeral at 5:30 a.m. When he finished playing, he faced an hourlong drive back to Columbus to work for several more hours. But he had heard that Smith was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber on March 21, and he knew he wanted to play.
"No one called me to do this," he said. "I asked to."
The Marine honor guard, a reserve unit from Dayton, was already practicing when Penyak got to the Springfield cemetery just after 11 a.m. He was a little late. He had decided to go by the church first to watch part of the service.
The honor guard members were getting nervous waiting for him. "We've got a backup, just in case," a guard member said.
Penyak drove in a few minutes later, still more than an hour before the hearse would arrive. He learned of the backup and asked to see it.
A man in uniform stepped up, pressed a button at the end of the bugle he held and put it to his lips. The bugle played a tinny, slightly scratchy version of taps.
The man handed Penyak the bugle. Penyak pushed the button again and held the bugle at his side. It started playing. He put his trumpet to his lips and started playing along with it. When he tilted the other bugle down, the little black cone fell to the ground, still playing the song.
A veteran dressed mostly in red was watching. "The first time I used one of those, I had it drop out, too," he said.
The honor guard put away the bugle with the black cone.
There are several kinds of perfect taps. After a little warm-up near the grave, Penyak went through them.
The first is clear, unadorned, with a medium tempo. Penyak got through it flawlessly. Then there's a slower, more embellished way. He prefers that.
"I'm playing it with a lot of vibrato. I'm crescendoing in and out," he said after he finished a version that way. The notes trembled. Some you could hardly hear, some boomed.
Since Nov. 25, 1963, though, one perfect taps has been imperfect by design. The bugler at President Kennedy's funeral cracked the sixth note, as if he were crying. It has become tradition to crack the note now, especially if the people in the crowd are old enough to remember Kennedy.
Penyak went through another version and broke the sixth note. "You mess it up, you chalk it up to emotion," he said.
Taps is the emotional apex of a military graveside service. If you do not cry during it, you are not going to cry, Penyak said. The song probably began during the Civil War as the lights-out announcement, then morphed into the memorial call by the end of the war.
Penyak used to offer condolences to the families after he played, but he stopped. They found it too upsetting to talk to the man who had just broadcast that their relative had died.
This time Penyak would break his own rule. After he played his final version and after a bagpiper played Amazing Grace, Penyak would walk to a sitting Ronald Smith, Kevin's father. Penyak would drop to one knee.
When he rose, Penyak would look like the one who was keeping himself from crying. He would talk and sound as if he were choking back tears.
"I just said I was sorry for their loss," he would say.
But that would come later. He is standing 100 feet from the grave, holding the trumpet. The pastor says some words. Not far in front of Penyak, seven people in uniform hear a command to raise their rifles, and they fire three volleys each. Penyak raises the horn to his lips, arches his back a little and starts to blow. Day is done Gone the sun He doesn't clearly crack the sixth note. He'd say later that he hit it wrong. He cracked it a little, he said, but only he could tell. From the lake From the hills From the sky The 200 or so people have looked back to see who the bugler is and where he is playing. Now they turn again to the grave. Many bow their heads. Lance Cpl. Kevin Smith, 20, served his country. Now he's home. All is well Safely rest God is nigh.
[email protected]