Alabama Baptists will join people across the nation in remembering America’s fallen heroes on Memorial Day. A few days before the symbolic day, the Army’s 3rd U.S. Infantry (the Old Guard) places American flags before the gravestones and niches of service members buried at both Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, and the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery, Washington, D.C.
This tradition, known as “flags in,” has been conducted annually since the Old Guard was designated as the Army’s official ceremonial unit in 1948.
Every available soldier in the 3rd U.S. Infantry participates, placing small American flags one foot in front and centered before each grave marker.
During an approximately three-hour period, the soldiers place flags in front of more than 260,000 gravestones and about 7,300 niches at the cemetery’s columbarium.
Another 13,500 flags are placed at the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Cemetery. As part of this yearly memorial activity, Old Guard soldiers remain in the cemetery throughout the weekend, ensuring that a flag remains at each gravestone.
American flags are also placed at the graves of each of the four unknown servicemen interred at the Tomb of the Unknowns, by the Tomb Sentinels.
All flags are removed after Memorial Day before each cemetery is opened to the public.
Other practices honoring the military’s past members have even older origins than the Memorial Day flags.
The practice of draping the casket with the national flag began during the Napoleonic Wars (1796–1815). The dead carried from the field of battle on a caisson were covered with flags. When the U.S. flag covers the casket, it is placed so the union blue field is at the head and over the left shoulder. It is not placed in the grave and is not allowed to touch the ground.
The flag for one who dies while on active duty is provided by one’s branch of service. Flags for other veterans are provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The flag is presented to the next of kin at the end of the funeral, usually by the military chaplain. If there is no next of kin present, the flag may be presented to the veteran’s close friend or associate if requested.
The flags that draped the caskets of the Unknown Soldiers are on display in the Memorial Display Room of the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington.
Firing three rifle volleys over the grave originated in the old custom of halting the fighting to remove the dead from the battlefield. Once each army had cleared its dead, it would fire three volleys to indicate that the dead had been cared for and that they were ready to go back to the fight. The fact that the firing party consists of seven riflemen, firing three volleys does not constitute a 21-gun salute.
Salute by gunfire is a very ancient ceremony. In the earliest days, the firing of seven guns was a recognized British National Salute.
Those early British regulations stated that when firing for honors, a ship could fire only seven guns, but the forts could fire three shots to one shot afloat. This created a 21-gun salute.
In that day powder of sodium nitrate was easier to keep on shore than at sea.
In time, when the quality of gun powder improved by the use of potassium nitrate, the sea salute was made equal to the shore salute of 21 guns, and this became the highest national honor.
There was much confusion caused by the varying customs of maritime states, but finally the British government proposed to the United States a regulation that provided for “Salute to Be Returned Gun for Gun.”
The British at that time officially considered the international salute to be 21 guns and the United States adopted the 21-gun and “Gun for Gun Return” Aug. 17, 1875. Previous to that time, the United States’ national salute was one gun for each state.
“Taps” is an American call, composed by the Union Army’s Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield while in camp at Harrison’s Landing, Va., in 1862.
Butterfield wrote the call to replace the earlier call to lights out — “Tattoo” — which he thought too formal. The call soon became known as “Taps,” because it was often tapped out on a drum in the absence of a bugler.
Before the year was out, sounding “Taps” became the practice in Northern and Southern camps. The call was officially adopted by the U.S. Army in 1874.
Col. James A. Moss, in his “Officer’s Manual” first published in 1911, gives this account of the initial use of “Taps” at a military funeral:
“During the Peninsular Campaign in 1862, a soldier of Tidball’s Battery A of the 2nd Artillery was buried at a time when the battery occupied an advanced position concealed in the woods,” Moss wrote in his manual.
“It was unsafe to fire the customary three volleys over the grave, on account of the proximity of the enemy, and it occurred to Capt. Tidball that the sounding of “Taps” would be the most appropriate ceremony that could be substituted.
“The custom, thus originated, was taken up throughout the Army of the Potomac and finally confirmed by orders,” he finished.
(U.S. Army Military District of Washington, www.mdw.army.mil.)
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