Honor Guards Required at Veterans’ Funerals

The more than 500,000 U.S. veterans who are likely to die this year will be the first to be guaranteed military honors at their funerals under a Defense Department policy that went into effect Jan. 1.

The policy is a reversal for the Pentagon, which has held for years that, although no institution has more interest in honoring veterans, military honor guards are impractical in an era when so many veterans are dying and so many military bases are closing.

But as awareness of the contributions of veterans has risen in recent years, so has political pressure to accord them the Pentagon-sanctioned honors already awarded to military personnel and retirees. Late last year, President Clinton signed into law legislation requiring the Defense Department to provide military funeral honors to all eligible veterans. The Pentagon policy is a direct response to the new law.

The new policy guarantees an honor guard of at least two uniformed military personnel, the playing of taps and the folding of the American flag at veterans’ funerals in public or private cemeteries throughout the country, if requested by family members.

Congress has allocated $5 million to pay travel expenses and a small stipend to members of the Reserve and National Guard who volunteer to participate in the ceremonies. And the Pentagon has enlisted the help of the nation’s 24,000 registered funeral home directors to get out the word.

“These people served their country and under extreme circumstances. We’re talking World War II here. We’re talking a generation,” said retired Capt. Fred Becker Jr., naval affairs director for the Reserve Officers Assn. of the United States, one of the groups that has been lobbying for the change in policy. “This is a victory for them and for their families.”

To be eligible for military honors, a veteran must have served at least two years in the active military and must not have a dishonorable discharge. Members or former members of the active reserve also are eligible.

Ever since the Civil War, military honors for veterans have been a tradition that the services willingly supported but did not guarantee. Until a decade or so ago, there was seldom a shortage of active duty personnel ready and willing to travel to the funerals of veterans whose families requested the honors. They would play the mournful tones of taps on their bugles, fire a traditional three-volley salute and present the American flag to the veteran’s family.

But in the last decade, even as the number of dying veterans has increased, the number of military bases and military personnel across the country has shrunk.

With even the youngest World War II veterans now in their 70s, the Pentagon estimates that more than 45,000 die each month. Last year, more than 561,000 veterans died, up from 456,000 in 1989. During the same 10-year period, more than 90 of 495 major military installations on U.S. soil have shut down, reducing the ranks of active duty personnel available for honor guard details.

“It’s always been the Department of Defense’s goal to provide final honors to retirees and veterans, and it used to be no big deal. You had a lot of soldiers on installations, so it was not a problem to send soldiers out to do this,” said Lt. Col. Catherine Abbott, a Defense Department spokeswoman. “But, with the downsizing of the military, those soldiers became harder and harder to come by.”

Around the nation, but especially in California, home to more veterans than any other state, volunteer honor guards have stepped into the breach, training themselves in the protocol of military honors, borrowing blanks and old guns to fire salutes and buying their own uniforms.

At Riverside National Cemetery, where more veterans were buried last year than at all but one cemetery in the country, about two dozen veterans groups average four burials a day.

But many of the veteran volunteers are in their 70s, and their ranks too are fast diminishing.

“They’re not going to be able to do that for too much longer because they’re getting up in age, so providing military honors really became a critical issue in honoring our nation’s heroes,” said Rick Arndt of the National Cemetery Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Members of Congress had attempted several times in recent years to institutionalize honor guards. But it was not until Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) introduced legislation last year that the campaign was successful. Eventually, the proposal was passed as part of the 2000 defense authorization act.

Murray said she decided to enter the fray in 1997 after the death of her father, a World War II veteran. She said she was able to get an honor guard for his funeral, but “I thought you shouldn’t have to be a U.S. senator to get this for someone who served our country.”

Under the new policy, the honor guards can be two or more active-duty military personnel, retired service members or reservists. At least one member of the honor guard must be a member of the branch of the service in which the deceased veteran served.

The policy requires military bases around the country to ensure that a trained honor guard is on hand for veterans’ funerals at all times and mandates that veterans and others who volunteer for the program undergo Defense Department-sanctioned training in how to conduct them. The Defense Department must reimburse veterans for other costs associated with their honor guard duties.

In recent weeks, the Pentagon has mailed packets to funeral directors around the country with a list of contact numbers of the military bases nearest to them, a video and written instructions on honors ceremonies and a compact disc recording of taps to be used if a bugler is not available.

The Pentagon has also set up a toll-free phone number and a Web site for funeral directors seeking assistance. Both have been active since Jan. 1.

Veterans groups hailed the new policy.

“Two men--well that’s a 200% improvement,” said Hal Camp, a World War II veteran who leads a volunteer honor guard in Orange County that was one of the first in the nation. Camp’s group performs honor services at 15 funerals a week in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“This is the way it was always supposed to be. And I’ll take anything we can get.”

Camp, 81, called $5 million to cover honors for the more than 1,500 veterans who die each day “peanuts.”

“But the point isn’t what they’re spending, it’s that they’re spending it. They’re spending it to make things right with these families.”

And he added: “We’ll keep doing our part too. We’ll keep taking care of our own.”

*

Times staff writer Bonnie Harris in Orange County contributed to this story.