Taps

I was outside this evening, enjoying the cool breeze, when the haunting notes of Taps echoed across the short distance from the base. That simple tune never meant much to me until I was in Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB, Texas. It was June of 1983, and the sun was setting. I remember sitting on my bunk and staring out the window while it played. The last rays were slowly fading away. They were like deep purple fingers trying to cling to the sky for one last touch of the verdant realm below. I pondered what I was doing at that moment, fresh out of high school and far from home, in a barracks full of strangers from all over the place.

As the notes continued, I thought of those women and men who had died for our nation, first on our shores, then on distant shores. I wondered if I would end up sacrificing my life for my country. I wasn’t afraid to do it, I was just wondering what the chances were that it would happen. We were not in any conflicts during that period, some twenty-odd years ago, so the chances were remote. As the sun finished its journey and the notes ceased, I found myself suddenly very homesick. That was the first personal feeling I attached to Taps.

As I grew older and continued in my military career, I had heard it so many times, since it signals the end of the day, as well as the end of one’s journey in this life, that it started to lose meaning for me. Then Desert Storm happened. Shortly after it ended, I found myself attending funerals of friends I had served with who began dropping from mysterious ailments. At each of these funerals, I reflected on the ways our paths had crossed. Taps cemented the fact that our paths would never cross again.

A little over seven years ago, that somber tune took on a completely new emotional meaning for me. As the first note echoed through the chapel I was standing in, with my brothers on either side of me, I felt as if a sledgehammer was driving a spike through my heart. We were attending my father’s funeral. Each note seemed to drive the spike deeper through my heart and into my soul. That was it. His march was over. Last roll call. Lights out. I knew I was crying aloud, but all I could hear besides those mournful notes was my heartbeat pounding in my head.

For the longest time, I could not stand hearing it. However, as time passed, and I began to accept my dad’s passing (I had some anger issues with it); it became easier for me to listen to Taps. Now, when I hear it each evening, I think not only of Dad, sans the anger, but also, once again, of those who have served our nation and are now marching to another jody. I reckon that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

 

Duty, Honor, Country