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Despite stupid lunchtime traffic with a YELLING BABY in Ballston and the Arlington Cemetery rep being off his head worried that we would take too long somewhere and delay the next funeral, everything went off smoothly. It was a gorgeous day. We managed to bribe the Megatherium with strawberries not to make too many joyous or fussy noises in the church. Grauwulf got up and washed my extremely grubby car first thing in the morning, so it was not too embarrassing as the first car in the long parade of vehicles. My mother and my uncle and I walked behind the caisson from the Old Post Chapel in Ft Meyer to the columbarium (which is a collection of open courts-- more on that in a minute. Our relevant address is complex 7, wall W, row 5, top niche.)
So, full Navy honors for a Commander begins with a 20 minute time block for a religious service (religious specified by Arlington, with option to provide your own officiant or to get an assigned service chaplain) including organist and flag & casket bearers. In this case, there was just an urn, so only one bearer came past the church entryway. Then there was further pageantry with getting the urn into the little drawer on the back of the coffin-sized caisson, and then a procession of possibly about two miles out the cemetery gate of the fort through Arlington Cemetery to the Columbarium. Fifteen or twenty person band, followed by a fifteen person rifle squad, followed by the seven horses and an outrider (four riders) on the caisson, eight bearers marching behind, the three of us walking, my car with grauwulf and my brother in the front seat, (and the Megatherium in the back seat, losing her bonnet & a shoe) and a long parade of other cars. And then there was business-with-presentation-flag (unfolding and refolding) and full military honors (3 rounds of rifle salute, from a different set of rifle bearers), presentation of the flag and several representatives of various things shaking hands and offering condolences, and then my mother got to carry the urn to the niche (though she wasn't allowed to go up the five-step ladder to put it in) and there was a very brief final words from the chaplain. And then the overly time-conscious cemetery representative hurrying everyone back to their cars.
My father retired when I was still in elementary school, so the Navy's rank-based "this was someone special" seems kind of weird to me. I think he did more good for the armed forces, Navy included, than some Admirals but that much of that was more recently in managing DARPA programs for training, for which no official credit is given.
When my grandmother was in the nursing home, my father got very frustrated that she spent a lot of time just sitting there with her eyes shut and didn't seem to care much if anyone had bothered to bring her glasses downstairs or got her teeth in. He told me that when he was that age he hoped he'd be able to enjoy sitting there and watching the squirrels. The corner of the Columbarium he's in now is planted in liriope (ugh) and a nice little magnolia tree, and we will come back sometime and scatter peanuts so that perhaps there will be squirrels to watch.
---- Three of us spoke during the service, first a Navy officer my father worked with in DARPA, then me, then a long-time storytelling friend of the family. This was my ~3 1/2 minutes:
( what I said, more or less )
So, full Navy honors for a Commander begins with a 20 minute time block for a religious service (religious specified by Arlington, with option to provide your own officiant or to get an assigned service chaplain) including organist and flag & casket bearers. In this case, there was just an urn, so only one bearer came past the church entryway. Then there was further pageantry with getting the urn into the little drawer on the back of the coffin-sized caisson, and then a procession of possibly about two miles out the cemetery gate of the fort through Arlington Cemetery to the Columbarium. Fifteen or twenty person band, followed by a fifteen person rifle squad, followed by the seven horses and an outrider (four riders) on the caisson, eight bearers marching behind, the three of us walking, my car with grauwulf and my brother in the front seat, (and the Megatherium in the back seat, losing her bonnet & a shoe) and a long parade of other cars. And then there was business-with-presentation-flag (unfolding and refolding) and full military honors (3 rounds of rifle salute, from a different set of rifle bearers), presentation of the flag and several representatives of various things shaking hands and offering condolences, and then my mother got to carry the urn to the niche (though she wasn't allowed to go up the five-step ladder to put it in) and there was a very brief final words from the chaplain. And then the overly time-conscious cemetery representative hurrying everyone back to their cars.
My father retired when I was still in elementary school, so the Navy's rank-based "this was someone special" seems kind of weird to me. I think he did more good for the armed forces, Navy included, than some Admirals but that much of that was more recently in managing DARPA programs for training, for which no official credit is given.
When my grandmother was in the nursing home, my father got very frustrated that she spent a lot of time just sitting there with her eyes shut and didn't seem to care much if anyone had bothered to bring her glasses downstairs or got her teeth in. He told me that when he was that age he hoped he'd be able to enjoy sitting there and watching the squirrels. The corner of the Columbarium he's in now is planted in liriope (ugh) and a nice little magnolia tree, and we will come back sometime and scatter peanuts so that perhaps there will be squirrels to watch.
---- Three of us spoke during the service, first a Navy officer my father worked with in DARPA, then me, then a long-time storytelling friend of the family. This was my ~3 1/2 minutes:
( what I said, more or less )