DUBUQUE, Iowa — After Richard Cowart’s father died in 1999, he expected a dignified military funeral for the military veteran.
The service was “superb,” he said, “until somebody turned on the boombox.”
Since a live bugler was unavailable to play “Taps,” the honor guard overseeing the service used a recording.
“It was scratchy with the wind,” said Cowart, a professor at the University of Dubuque. “It was whipping through and making all sorts of weird noises.”
Of America’s nearly 20 million veterans, more than 390,000 died in 2016 and 2017, according to data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Under federal law, they are entitled to a military honors ceremony, which includes the folding and presentation of the flag and playing of “Taps,” a funeral standard since 1891.
But after the military faced a shortage of buglers, U.S. lawmakers in 1999 authorized the playing of a recorded version of “Taps.”
While not appealing to everyone, the option is one of several that veterans service organizations in the tri-states have utilized as they struggle to locate players.
Many people in the tri-state region possess the ability to play “Taps,” said Nick Lucy, a member of American Legion Post No. 6 in Dubuque and the East Dubuque Drum & Bugle Corps.
