MILITARY FUNERAL HONORS TEAM LAKE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

Lake Countys Military Funeral Honors Team fires off a three-volley salute during a recent funeral. A 21-gun salute is fired with cannons and reserved for heads of state and high-ranking dignitaries. (Photo Courtesy of the Record-Bee)

Military Honors Rifle Team - Veterans Day 2005.



Lake County's Military Funeral Honors Team
  • Dean Brown
  • A.J. Carlson
  • Bob Clifton
  • Harry Deffenbough
  • Don "Tank" Farris
  • Rich Feiro
  • Harry Graves
  • Boyd Green
  • Marion Gunderson
  • Bill Held
  • Karen Henriksen
  • Bob Hernandez
  • Peter Hughes
  • Rev. Dr. Woody Hughes
  • Don McCowan
  • Kirk Mcdonald
  • Larry Mick
  • Bob Norris
  • Griff Ratterree
  • Charlie Schreiver
  • Frank Smothers
  • Larry Stiehr
  • Lloyd Stottsbury
  • Jay Swanson
  • Steve Tenneson
  • James Treston


    • Military Funeral Honors Team honors our soliders LAKE COUNTY -- In the heavily "militarized" Clear Lake region, where as many as 7,000 career military veterans reside about 12 percent of the county's total population the demand for the Military Funeral Honors Team of Lake County is not apt to decline any time soon. Since March 7, 2001 the day it was created the team has performed over 400 funerals. With an estimated 1,800 aging World War II veterans dying each day nationwide, groups such as this one are absolutely essential. So much so, that the Lake County team was certified for the solemn role it performs by the U.S. Defense Department in 2002. As is the case every Memorial Day, the team's importance will be underscored once more this coming Monday when it is slated to make five appearances. The day will go like this: 9 a.m. at Lower Lake Cemetery; 10 a.m. at Veterans Bridge in Lower Lake; 11 a.m. at Upper Lake Cemetery; 1:30 p.m. at Hartley Cemetery in Lakeport; Close out the day with a ceremony for fallen honors team member Jim Crain. The honor team, in fact, is probably busy performing at Kelseyville American Legion today as you read this, with a 9 a.m. ceremony planned at Kelseyville Cemetery. "We've had as many as 18 events in six days," said the team's leader, Rich Feiro. The team consists of 19 riflemen, four buglers, a flagman and Feiro 25 men in all and is a microcosm of the veteran population in the county. Its ranks include two retired Navy captains and a retired Army colonel. Another member did three tours in Vietnam and was awarded three Purple Hearts. The members range in age from 50 to 78. "This is a unique group with a unique history from all walks of life," Feiro said. "We have veterans from all different parts of the service and it's all volunteer. The only reason they get out there is it's the right thing to do." A veteran of both Vietnam and Desert Storm, himself, Feiro spent 33 years and eight months in the U.S. Air Force, retiring at the rank of chief master sergeant. But he was never a member of a military drill team before putting this one together. That it is not affiliated with any one local veterans organization, but at the same time virtually all of them, is what makes it unique. "I headed a group that wanted to do honors at military funerals right," said Feiro. "But to get enough people to do it, we had to take guys from all the groups VFW, American Legion, Vietnam War Veterans. Some are not affiliated with anything. "Then we started training. We'd learn to do one thing and then learn to do something else." The team still practices each month. It helps the team's precision, Feiro said, that one of the unit's retired captains is an Annapolis Naval Academy grad, "because he'd been through this stuff for four years, day and night." Standard procedure at a military funeral is for the honors team to take its place at the final resting place before the hearse carrying the deceased arrives. A bugler plays appropriate music as the pallbearers remove the casket from the hearse. After the minister or priest has completed a graveside eulogy, he or she nods to Feiro, who then calls the guard to attention, instructs it to unlock the safeties on its rifles and fire a three-volley salute. This is followed by a bugler playing taps and presentation of the flag that draped the veteran's coffin to a widow or next-of-kin by Feiro, with the sentiments, "On behalf of the president and a grateful nation, I am honored to present you with the flag that your loved one served under." The team's members provide their own uniforms, which are distinctly different from any branch of the military. Their rifles are another story. They are World War I Springfields the kind used by the legendary World War I soldier Sergeant York manufactured sometime between 1903 and 1918. As an aside, Feiro said the technology of the Springfields was almost certainly lifted directly from the German Mauser at a time before international patents. "I'm 99 and 9/10ths percent sure they are knock-offs of the Mauser," Feiro said. "Put them together and the only thing different is the stock." Feiro and his team co-creators found the Springfields, dusty but in excellent working order, locked away in a closet at the American Legion hall in Lucerne, where they had been stored for who knows how long. As it turned out it was a propitious find because more modern military rifles the M-1, MK-14 and M-16 are gas-powered and rely on the release of a projectile to ignite gun powder. That makes them useless to the honors team. "When you don't have the projectile you don't have enough pressure to create an explosion," Feiro said. To the uninitiated (including this reporter) it is also important to note that the honors team does not fire a "21-gun salute." Those, said Feiro, are fired with cannons and reserved for heads of state and high-ranking dignitaries. "What we do, we call the three-volley salute," he explained. This year, the honors team was itself honored with the Stars of Lake County Award for Volunteer Organization of the Year. At the awards dinner in March, the group received a standing ovation. Feiro was pleased, but said the team does not look for recognition. "We're just a volunteer organization doing what we do," he said. "When a guy (enlisting in the armed services) signs a paper and says, I'm willing to die for my country,' we believe that he should have that military honor when he dies.

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