Book Review: Sounding Taps
Most veterans and veteran families are familiar with "Taps,” the bugle call sound at the graveside services of veterans and service members during their funerals. The name most likely comes from the call to extinguish camp lights during the Civil War, which was sounded by three long taps on a snare drum.
The short tune itself has evolved a lot since the days of the Civil War. It was first used at a military funeral service in 1862. The slow, mournful sound was deemed appropriate for the setting, and sounding "Taps” at funerals caught on quickly. By 1891, it was a part of every military funeral.
Author Robin Lee Turner first began bugling with Honor Guard teams from VFW posts, Marine Corps League Detachments, and American Legion Posts. He was so impressed with the dedication to duty he saw in those honor guards that he decided to write a book. On Veterans Day 2021, he dedicated that book, "Sounding Taps: A Duty of Remembrance,” to the men and women who serve on those details.
Turner is an Army veteran who served for ten years but found he missed the camaraderie of military service. A few decades later, he picked up his bugle and volunteered with Bugles Across America, a nonprofit organization that provides buglers to sound "Taps” at military funerals free of charge.
Unlike so many veteran funerals, where the sound of "Taps” will come from a speaker in the horn of a bugle, Robin Lee Turner will arrive in his crisp dress uniform, clean white gloves, and shining bugle to perform a real rendition of the call. He’s provided this last service to the fallen hundreds of times.
Along the way, he began to collect the stories of those fallen whose stories might otherwise go untold. These are not the men and women whose stories will appear in history books alongside the names of great generals and epic battles, but they are the stories of the fallen, our fallen, who should not be forgotten.
It’s clear that "Sounding Taps” is not just a collection of those stories. It’s a labor of love by the author. It’s a book that might be perfectly suited to crack open every Memorial Day, to think of someone who gave their all in service to their country – a small way to remember and say thank you.
"Sounding Taps: A Duty of Remembrance” can be purchased on the author’s website and on Amazon. The book cost $15 for the Kindle edition, $35 for hardcover, and $28 for paperback.
While the price might seem steep, every dollar spent on the book will be donated to Bugles Across America to help make volunteer buglers available to Honor Guards to sound Taps live, at no cost, to families of the fallen, to the government, or to Honor Guards.