Taps....

We're here in the office working on our online pieces for Chief Charlie VanHoy's service today. One of our multimedia tributes is a slide show rolling by as the melancholy notes of Taps are blown on a lone bugle.

I played trumpet for seven years in middle and high school, earned the bugling merit badge, and served my scout troop in that capacity.

In the first year or so I was learning to play we gave my father's Uncle Joe a phone call. He was a jazz musician whose trupmet skills were of no mean fame in his corner of Georgia.

I was so proud of what I was learning, I put my trumpet to the receiver and played him a piece I'd figured out. I played him Taps.

The line went silent for a moment.

"John, that was beautiful."

"But I'd really hoped I wouldn't have to hear it again," said Uncle Joe.

During WWII the U.S. Army had made use of his skills as a musician on an island called Tinian in the Pacific, an island with a runway that launched thousands of airplanes, bombs and young men at Japan. One of those airplanes was the Enola Gay.

But for all the thousands of young men who didn't come back, somebody had to play taps -- my Uncle Joe.

Sorry Chad, sorry Joy, you did a great job on that multimedia. But I think I'll give it a pass.