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Military Funeral Honors Team honors our soliders
LAKE COUNTY -- In the heavily "militarized" Clear Lake region,
where as many as 7,000 career military veterans reside about 12
percent of the county's total population the demand for the Military
Funeral Honors Team of Lake County is not apt to decline any time
soon.
Since March 7, 2001 the day it was created the team has performed
over 400 funerals.
With an estimated 1,800 aging World War II veterans dying each
day nationwide, groups such as this one are absolutely essential. So
much so, that the Lake County team was certified for the solemn role
it performs by the U.S. Defense Department in 2002.
As is the case every Memorial Day, the team's importance will be
underscored once more this coming Monday when it is slated to make
five appearances. The day will go like this:
9 a.m. at Lower Lake Cemetery;
10 a.m. at Veterans Bridge in Lower Lake;
11 a.m. at Upper Lake Cemetery;
1:30 p.m. at Hartley Cemetery in Lakeport;
Close out the day with a ceremony for fallen honors team member
Jim Crain.
The honor team, in fact, is probably busy performing at
Kelseyville American Legion today as you read this, with a 9 a.m.
ceremony planned at Kelseyville Cemetery.
"We've had as many as 18 events in six days," said the team's
leader, Rich Feiro.
The team consists of 19 riflemen, four buglers, a flagman and
Feiro 25 men in all and is a microcosm of the veteran population in
the county. Its ranks include two retired Navy captains and a
retired Army colonel. Another member did three tours in Vietnam and
was awarded three Purple Hearts. The members range in age from 50 to
78.
"This is a unique group with a unique history from all walks of
life," Feiro said. "We have veterans from all different parts of the
service and it's all volunteer. The only reason they get out there
is it's the right thing to do."
A veteran of both Vietnam and Desert Storm, himself, Feiro spent
33 years and eight months in the U.S. Air Force, retiring at the
rank of chief master sergeant. But he was never a member of a military
drill team before putting this one together. That it is not
affiliated with any one local veterans organization, but at the same
time virtually all of them, is what makes it unique.
"I headed a group that wanted to do honors at military funerals
right," said Feiro. "But to get enough people to do it, we had to
take guys from all the groups VFW, American Legion, Vietnam War
Veterans. Some are not affiliated with anything.
"Then we started training. We'd learn to do one thing and then
learn to do something else."
The team still practices each month. It helps the team's
precision, Feiro said, that one of the unit's retired captains is an
Annapolis Naval Academy grad, "because he'd been through this stuff
for four years, day and night."
Standard procedure at a military funeral is for the honors team
to take its place at the final resting place before the hearse
carrying the deceased arrives. A bugler plays appropriate music as
the pallbearers remove the casket from the hearse.
After the minister or priest has completed a graveside eulogy, he
or she nods to Feiro, who then calls the guard to attention,
instructs it to unlock the safeties on its rifles and fire a
three-volley salute.
This is followed by a bugler playing taps and presentation of the
flag that draped the veteran's coffin to a widow or next-of-kin by
Feiro, with the sentiments, "On behalf of the president and a
grateful nation, I am honored to present you with the flag that your
loved one served under."
The team's members provide their own uniforms, which are
distinctly different from any branch of the military. Their rifles
are another story. They are World War I Springfields the kind used
by the legendary World War I soldier Sergeant York manufactured
sometime between 1903 and 1918.
As an aside, Feiro said the technology of the Springfields was
almost certainly lifted directly from the German Mauser at a time
before international patents.
"I'm 99 and 9/10ths percent sure they are knock-offs of the
Mauser," Feiro said. "Put them together and the only thing different
is the stock."
Feiro and his team co-creators found the Springfields, dusty but
in excellent working order, locked away in a closet at the American
Legion hall in Lucerne, where they had been stored for who knows how
long.
As it turned out it was a propitious find because more modern
military rifles the M-1, MK-14 and M-16 are gas-powered and rely on
the release of a projectile to ignite gun powder. That makes them
useless to the honors team.
"When you don't have the projectile you don't have enough
pressure to create an explosion," Feiro said.
To the uninitiated (including this reporter) it is also important
to note that the honors team does not fire a "21-gun salute." Those,
said Feiro, are fired with cannons and reserved for heads of state
and high-ranking dignitaries.
"What we do, we call the three-volley salute," he explained.
This year, the honors team was itself honored with the Stars of
Lake County Award for Volunteer Organization of the Year. At the
awards dinner in March, the group received a standing ovation.
Feiro was pleased, but said the team does not look for
recognition.
"We're just a volunteer organization doing what we do," he said.
"When a guy (enlisting in the armed services) signs a paper and
says, I'm willing to die for my country,' we believe that he should
have that military honor when he dies.
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