It's the least their country can do after them giving up, you know, X amount of years
of their life in order to serve their country.
It's the very least we can do.
I am the area coordinator for the Syracuse area for the military forces on a guard.
My daily duties consist of scheduling teams to go out on different details, ensuring that
soldiers show up on time, inspect their uniforms, coordinate them to go out on the detail.
We provide the final ceremony, which is military honors for KIAs and veterans.
The funeral honors consists of a two-man flag-folding detail, as well as a bugler.
When I was in Kirkuk, Iraq, I made a call back here to my boss, the NCOIC, Sergeant First Class
Stone, and was told that I wouldn't have a job when I came back simply because the funding
wouldn't allow it.
Sergeant Stone was able to get me back on active duty orders with the honor guard, but
even with getting me an order slot, it's become very difficult to pay for the part-timers
who come in.
So, you have to try to cover these details with your active duty guys, but if you can't
do that, then you draw from your part-timers and just hope you have enough people.
No one under me has ever missed a funeral.
However, I do foresee us having to turn away veterans in the near future if we continue
to have this funding issue, because if I can't pay a soldier, I can't bring them in.
And since they're National Guard, I can't tell them to come in because they're not
getting paid.
So, eventually, we will have to turn down veterans for military honors, just the ugly
truth of it.
I wish that more importance was put into veterans.
People don't see the other side of that.
They think that we come back and live these grand lives and we're all taken care of and
everything works out, but the truth of the matter is that it doesn't work that way.
People come back, real life sets in, and these guys can't support themselves.
Eventually, it's going to come to that for me, where either this program will cease to
exist through the National Guard, or we'll just not have enough people to do it anyways.
So if we don't get funding soon, if New York State doesn't try to pick up the ball and
try to realize that military funerals for veterans is an extremely important aspect
of the military, then not only will people lose jobs, they just won't get the honors.
Ma'am, this flag is presented on behalf of a grateful nation as an expression of appreciation
for the honorable and faithful service rendered by your loved one.
I'm sorry for your loss.
