Push-button bugle at military funerals
According to this news site: (edited)
So you think this post belongs in another forum? But nooo…I just used this as an excuse to tell some bugle stories of my own. Feel free to add yours.
Basic Bugling
The first week of Basic Training at Fort Lostinthe Woods, Missouri, the company Captain asked if anyone could play the bugle. Of course it went more like this:
“TEN-ShuN. Awrat, assholes & pussies! Any of you jerkoff losers play the goddamn bugle horn? Fall out smartly and report to the Sergeant!”
I had played trumpet before, so I “fell out,” probably not very smartly. Sarge took me over to the supply window and requisitioned a standard-issue bugle. I played a few calls; taps, reveille. Sarge looked bored. I told him I didn’t know all of the Army bugle calls, but if he had some music, I could learn them pretty quickly.
Sarge said, “Naw, what we wanna hear is some Top-40. How about some rock 'n roll? Elvis?”
After I finished laughing (not a good thing to do in front of an Army Sargeant), I explained to him why a valveless trumpet wouldn’t be much use for the Top 40 Hit Parade[sup]*[/sup]. I don’t think he believed me, but that ended my bugling career.
What the Captain wanted was a band to play when we marched from the barracks to the field; something to replace the standard, “Hup, Two, Three, Four” or “I got a gal in Kalamazoo; sound off…” Since the regular band was too busy to cater to this Captain’s whimsical desires, he thought he’d make a mini-band from his own troups.
Since I had brought my flute to Basic, and a friend was able to snag a snare drum out of supply (Army supply carries drums and bugles?), I suggested we use what we had. So several times a day, as we marched, I played the flute and he played the drums. I stuck to upper flute registers so it would carry and played any tune I could think of or was requested, as long as it was in 4/4 time (“Take Five” was out). The cadre was thrilled, and it served to distinguish our company from the others.
This is what passes for pride in the military.
I guess nowdays I would be replaced with a boombox with 24 D-cells carried by Radio Raheem.
Another Bugle Story (Aren’t you glad you asked?)
In Vietnam, at the 1st Division Headquarters in a rubber plantation called Lai Khe, one full-time job was a trumpet player from the 1st Division Band. The rest of the band was stationed at another base 60 miles away, but this player was on permanent re-assignment just to bugle.
The traditional army has a bugle call for everything. I guess before wristwatches and other modern devices, the way to tell time was to remember the last bugle call you heard. There is a distinctive melody to get out of bed, to prepare for breakfast, to eat breakfast, to get back to work, to break for coffee, noontime, etc. Like the gung-ho officer in Catch-22, the 1st Div Big Cheese wanted the semblance of a traditional army, so the bugler had to play them all, and at exactly the right time each day. Well, maybe not ALL – the “time to water the horses” call wasn’t used much anymore.
It wasn’t a bad gig, really. In between bugle calls, he could do anything he wanted – sleep, eat or play cards, as long as he was spiffily regulation-dressed and ready to toot in front of the tent a dozen times a day. And the total time he worked each day amounted to maybe 10 minutes.
But the trumpeters hated the gig, so we rotated them back to the main band after a few months.
Please, just one more story. (I thought you’d never ask.)
At the Oakland Army Terminal, the Old Man (Band Commander) thought it was clever to assign TWO buglers to play taps at ceremonies that called for it. One bugler would be visible in the usual place as part of the ceremony, but the second would hide behind a nearby building or whatever he could find. The second’s job was to provide an artificial echo of the first. The main bugler played VERY slowly, solemly, and dramatically, and as he paused inbetween musical phrases, you could hear the “echo” wafting from afar.
Very dramatic. We could hardly keep from laughing, and hoped the second guy, who of course couldn’t see what was going on and could barely hear it, wouldn’t feel too rushed, and let the echo get ahead of the source.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. Any buglers in our SDMB bunch with stories to tell?
*A bugle can play only a few notes of the standard scale, rigidly based on the total length of its tubing. A trumpet adds extra tubing and valves to control the effective acoustic length, and makes it possible to play an entire chromatic scale. So a trumpet can play bugle calls, but a bugle can’t play any music that strays outside that limited range of notes.