1.A FOUR GUN SALUTE MAY BE RENDERED BY WHOM?
2.THE PROPER NUMBER OF GUN SLAUTES RENDERED TO A MEMBER OF CONGRESS IS?
Nobody thought I knew how to do that kinda stuff, right?
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Here is the U.S. Army’s counterpoint to Ian of the Straight Dope:
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/faq/salute.htm
The U.S. Marine magazine Leatherneck has a list of the numbers fired for military ranks:
http://www.mca-marines.org/Leatherneck/21gunarch.htm
To get civilian salutes, I had to actually open a book! (Since all the military sites noted there were other salutes, but declined to enumerate them.)
From Barbara Ann Kipfer’s The Order of Things, ©1997, Random House:
21 - President, former President, President-elect, foreign leader, royalty
19 - Vice president, Speaker of the House, cabinet members, Senate president pro tempore, chief justice, ambassador (foreign or U.S.), prime minister, premier, secretary of the Army/Navy/Air Force, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chief of Naval Operations, & Marine Corps Commandant
17 - generals (4 star), admirals (4 star), Assistant Secretary of the Army/Navy/Air Force, Chairman of a Congressional Committee
15 - foreign envoys or ministers (below ambassador), lieutenant generals, vice admirals
13 - rear admirals (upper half), major generals, resident ministers
11 - brigadier generals, rear admirals (lower half), charges d’affaires (foreign or U.S.), consuls general
BTW, I have never seen a 4 gun salute: superstion dictates that they come in odd number increments; no salutes go below 9 in number, (11 in the U.S.).
Anyone (with the powder and enough pieces of ordnance) may give a salute. Saluting is a sign of respect to someone, and I know of no lower limit of class or rank that forbids one from acknowledging the superiority of another.
I spent a few minutes looking on the web but could find nothing on salutes of less than 11 volleys. Somewhere in an army manual I’m sure it covers the circumstances for fewer volleys because…
About 15 years ago I unfortunately had to carry the coffin at an army funeral on a frozen hilltop in West Virginia. This was for an active enlisted soldier killed on duty (plane crash outside of Gander). Since there were so many to bury, my infantry battalion was tasked for the duty instead of whomever usually does it. I can’t remember exactly but there was a 3 or 5 gun salute. Afterwards, one of the morbid comments was a sergeant stating the volleys sounded better near the end because he was pretty sure he was the only one still firing (M-16’s and blanks are not very reliable).
Remember, we’re not Homework Help. The OP should be doing the research, not us.
Given that I was unable to find my information on the web, and given that I only found it because I have a fairly extensive print reference library at home, (and given that I have never seen this question asked in school), I am quite willing to risk helping a student on this one.
I certainly agree in principle that the appropriate response to a homework question is a gentle guide toward reference tools. However, this question was not “Why are there 21 gun salutes?” which is easily discovered on the web or, possibly, in an encyclopedia.