Live Bugling vs Digital Bugle

This is a hot issue with BAA, as you can well imagine. This was posted last December on the BAA forum:

I am a new bugler and have not yet played for my first funeral, but today could have been it. A friend of mine passed away and I called my pastor who was handling the service. I volunteered to do the bugling and he relayed that fact to the funeral home that we had a live bugler. The funeral home made the arrangements with the Navy who assured him that they would be sending a bugler and another member to fold the flag and play Taps, so I wasn\'t needed. At the gravesite, the pastor informed me that the detail hadn\'t arrived yet and asked if I had brought my bugle. I went to the car to get it. When I got back, the Navy detail of two individuals had arrived, with bugle in the case. Well, as you might have guessed, the \"bugler\" was really an \"electronic bugle operator\". At the proper time, she raised the bugle and started it playing this puny am radio type sound which played for about six notes, then stopped. She waited a sec for it to play some more, but nothing happened, so she put it down and they moved on with the ceremony.

Afterword, as everyone was leaving, I headed back to my car with the Getzen still in the case. I got about halfway and turned around. I couldn\'t leave it half played. I went back to the gravesite where some of the relatives were still there as well as the funeral guys. I took the Getzen out of the case and told one of the relatives I was going to play Taps for Tom (the deceased)right now. As I did everyone stopped and listened. As I was putting the horn away, the family thanked me. They said that was more like what they were expecting during the funeral. Then the two Navy personnel walked back over from their car and thanked me for finishing Taps for them. In fact, the bugle operator said she wished they had been a little later, so that I would have been the bugler instead of her. I hadn\'t played it perfectly, but it was loud and it was live. I felt better about having done it.

I am now more than ever determined to carry out our mission, even though there are obstacles to us live buglers.


Jay Stevenson
Topeka, KS

UPDATE: Our own Dave Burkhardt has posted regarding the issue:

I took the time to read the whole article posted in the Courant (Hartford, CT). It eventually gives mention to BAA. However, both buglers mentioned in the article have not received any calls !

"...Shelton said he''s available and
on call to render taps, but hasn''t
received any requests through the
group. ... Davis is still waiting for
a request from Bugles Across America
to play at a funeral. "
- Hartford Courant, 4/25/2005

Here in Colorado there also seem to be few requests. Based on the number of daily veterans funerals, BAA should easily be overwhelmed with requests. But we are not. I think a key may be personal contacts.

If enough of the funeral directors and honor guard supervisors at the bases know a specific person and phone number they can call to get their mission fulfilled, then i think they would be more likely to take advantage of BAA. Of course we have to follow up and deliver with a quality service to continue building our reputation. The web request, while good to have, might be too anonymous - it may be perceived to go into a black hole. Keep the web, but let''s go on a campaign to set up each and every base and funeral home with a BAA "buddy", who can then be responsible for finding a bugler who will commit to the mission.

How about it? Please consider this and drive this effort down through the organization. I believe the whole "fake taps" issue will become moot very quickly if everyone had a personal contact they could call to deliver the "goods".

Read the Courant article linked above!