Lesson Overview
The earlier lessons built the conduct of ceremonial piece by piece: the NCO as custodian of standards, the planning of an event, the rehearsing of troops, the supervision of turnout, the forming of a Colour party, and the running of a guard of honour. This lesson turns from honour rendered to the living to honour rendered to the dead. It is the gravest duty the course teaches, and the one on which the running of it falls most heavily on you. The officer commands the parade; but it is the NCO who builds the bearer party, drills it until it cannot falter, sets the timings, dresses the troops, and holds the whole of it together so that, on the worst day of a family's life, the Army renders the last honours to one of its own with a steadiness that conceals every effort it cost.
A funeral is the one parade with no margin. A guard got slightly wrong is a fault corrected at the next rehearsal; a bearer party that stumbles, a flag fumbled in the fold, a bugle call missed, a timing that leaves a grieving family standing in the cold while the Army sorts itself out, these are wounds, and they cannot be taken back. The whole purpose of an NCO's preparation is that none of it happens, that the family carries nothing, decides nothing, and waits for nothing, and that every exact movement tells them without a word that their soldier was valued and is honoured to the end. This lesson teaches you to plan it, rehearse it, time it, and run it, and to hold within it the firm conventions of mourning that the careless get wrong.
By the end you will be able to prepare and conduct a military funeral from the bearer party's first rehearsal to the march-off, set out the order of the service and the procession and the honours rendered to the dead in sequence, explain firmly why flags are half-masted while the consecrated Colours are draped or cased and never half-masted, conduct the National Flag upon the coffin from draping to folding to presentation to the next of kin, name the Commonwealth soundings the Army keeps and why they are never the American "Taps", and explain the human care owed to the bereaved family, the chaplain's central place, and the NCO's quiet, sure running of it all.
Key Terms
- Bearer party: the party of soldiers, commonly six or eight, who carry the coffin at a military funeral in slow time, with matched and silent precision; the heart of the funeral, and the part the NCO drills hardest.
- Firing party: the detail that fires volleys of blank rounds at the committal as the Army's formal salute in arms to the dead, where one is found and where the rite and the place allow it.
- Volley: one round fired by the firing party as a single body on the word of command; the firing party customarily fires three volleys in succession.
- Slow march: the measured, deliberate marching pace, slower than the quick march, used for mourning and the most solemn ceremonial; the pace in which the coffin is borne.
- Last Post: the bugle call that closes the soldier's day and, at a funeral or act of remembrance, sounds the farewell to the dead.
- The Rouse: the bugle call (the Rouse, or in its longer form the Reveille) sounded after the Last Post and the silence, recalling the living to their duty. It is the Commonwealth call the Army keeps, and it is never the United States "Taps", which belongs to a tradition the RKA does not use.
- Half-mast: the position of mourning to which a flag is lowered, having first been hoisted to the peak; ordered by the Royal Court, and a thing only a flag flown on a mast can do.
- Draped (in crape) / cased: the marks of mourning proper to a consecrated Colour, which is borne on a pike and so can never be half-masted; covered with black crape, or carried in its case.
- Next of kin: the family member to whom the folded National Flag is presented at the committal, as a token of the State's gratitude and the Army's honour.
The NCO's charge at a funeral
Understand first what your part is, because it is not the officer's and not the soldier's, and a funeral runs well only when each knows his place. The officer presiding commands the parade and represents the Army to the family. The soldiers render the honours, the bearer party carrying, the firing party firing, the bugler sounding. Your charge runs underneath all of it: you build the parade and make it certain. You select and drill the bearer party; you rehearse the firing party and the bugler; you set the timings to the minute and the route to the step; you supervise the turnout so that not one soldier is short of the standard; you carry the contingencies in your head; and you stand where you can see the whole of it and put right, quietly and without fuss, anything that begins to go wrong.
The measure of your work is invisibility. On a guard of honour the standard is meant to be seen and admired; at a funeral it is meant to disappear, so that the family sees only their soldier carried with care by people who counted it an honour. A bearer party drilled until the slow march needs no thought looks effortless, and the effort is exactly what you have hidden. The family should carry nothing: not a decision, not a doubt, not a wait, not a single ragged moment. Everything they are spared, you have arranged in advance, and that is why the preparation matters more than any single movement on the day.
WHO DOES WHAT AT A MILITARY FUNERAL
PRESIDING OFFICER commands the parade; represents the Army
to the family and the gathering
THE NCO (you) BUILDS and RUNS it: selects & drills the
bearer party; rehearses firing party &
bugler; sets TIMINGS & route; supervises
TURNOUT; holds the contingencies; puts
right what falters -- quietly
CHAPLAIN / conducts the rites; leads & supports the
MINISTER family; carries the grief (CENTRAL, not
incidental)
BEARER PARTY carries the coffin in slow time; folds the
flag; presents it to the next of kin
FIRING PARTY / render the honours in arms and by bugle:
BUGLER volleys, the Last Post, the Rouse
AIM: the family carries NOTHING -- the NCO has arranged it all
Preparing and rehearsing the bearer party
The bearer party is where your preparation is most demanding and most repaid, because carrying a coffin steadily in slow time is harder than it looks and unforgiving of the unrehearsed. Select with care. You want soldiers of even height, so the coffin rides level; of steady bearing, so they do not waver under the weight or the watching; and of the temperament that will hold composure at the side of a weeping family. Selection is itself an honour, and the soldiers should be told so, because a soldier who understands that he has been trusted with a comrade's last carriage will give it everything he has. Commonly the party is six, three to a side, with a party commander to set the step and pass the quiet words of command, and a relief or two told off in case a bearer is taken ill, because you plan for the soldier who faints and are never caught without an answer.
Then rehearse, and rehearse with a weighted coffin, because an empty box teaches nothing and the weight is the whole difficulty. Drill the lift until it is smooth and silent and made as one, the coffin coming up level with no jerk and no scrape. Drill the slow march under the weight until the steps are short, matched, and unhurried, the party moving as a single body, the effort hidden. Drill the turns, the halt, the set-down (as smooth and silent as the lift), and the lifting of the flag clear and its fold, treated in its own section below and rehearsed until it needs no thought. Drill it on the actual ground where it can be got, over the real route and up the real steps, because a kerb or a narrow doorway met for the first time on the day is exactly the kind of small thing that breaks a slow march. Rehearse the words of command, given low, because a funeral is run on quiet orders and not parade-ground shouting. The rehearsal is the price of the dignity, and you pay it in full, because the audience is a grieving family at the worst hour of their lives and a falter is a wound.
THE BEARER PARTY (a party of six)
coffin, DRAPED with the NATIONAL FLAG
+=====================================+
| |
[B1] o [B2] o [B3] o <- three to a side,
| | EVEN height so the
| (party commander sets the step, | coffin rides LEVEL
| passes the QUIET words of cmd) |
[B4] o [B5] o [B6] o
| |
+=====================================+
REHEARSE (with a WEIGHTED coffin, on the REAL ground):
- the LIFT smooth, silent, made as one, coffin level
- the SLOW MARCH short matched steps; weight hidden; move as one
- turns & HALT controlled; no scrape, no jerk
- the SET-DOWN as smooth and silent as the lift
- lift the FLAG clear -> FOLD -> PRESENT to next of kin
- QUIET words of command throughout
Tell off a RELIEF or two: plan for the bearer taken ill.
The order of the service, the procession, and the timings
The funeral has a settled military framework, and your task is to fit it to the rite of the dead and the wishes of the family, never to impose it over them. The family's tradition leads; the chaplain or minister conducts the rites; the military honours are rendered in support of those rites. What follows is the shape of the whole, so that you know what comes next and can run it without hesitation, and the timings are yours to set and hold, because nothing wounds a grieving family like being made to wait while the Army finds itself.
Work the timings backwards from the moments that cannot move: the time of the service, the family's arrival, the committal. Then build in your margins. The parade forms up and is inspected by you well before anyone is due, because a parade still dressing itself when the family arrives has already failed. The coffin is received and draped. The procession moves in slow time to the place of the service or committal, the bearer party carrying, an escort in slow time, the bugler in his place. The rites are conducted, and here you stand back and let the chaplain and the family lead, your part to ensure the honours fall exactly where the order of service provides and not a beat sooner. Before the committal the flag is lifted, folded, and presented. The volleys are fired where they are rendered; the Last Post sounds; the silence is kept; the Rouse lifts the parade. The parade is brought to order and marched off, the bearing held to the end, because the public is watching still and the Army is the Army until it is off parade and out of sight.
THE ORDER OF A MILITARY FUNERAL (military framework)
(always fitted to the family's wishes and the rite of the dead)
0. REHEARSE bearer party, firing party, bugler drilled;
TIMINGS worked BACKWARDS from the fixed moments;
route walked; turnout inspected by the NCO
1. FORM UP / parade formed & inspected in GOOD TIME; coffin
RECEIVE received, DRAPED with the NATIONAL FLAG (a flag),
correctly oriented
2. PROCESSION borne by the BEARER PARTY in the SLOW MARCH;
escort in slow time, arms reversed / rest on arms
reversed; bugler / piper; Colour, if carried,
DRAPED in crape (NOT dipped, NOT half-masted)
3. THE RITES conducted by chaplain / minister; the family's
tradition LEADS; the NCO stands back and times
the honours to the order of service
4. FLAG FOLDED NATIONAL FLAG lifted clear and FOLDED with
ceremony before burial; PRESENTED TO THE NEXT OF
KIN (the flag is NOT buried)
5. VOLLEYS FIRING PARTY fires three volleys, each as one body
on the word of command (salute in arms)
6. LAST POST bugler sounds the LAST POST (the farewell)
7. SILENCE a period of SILENCE; the parade wholly still
8. THE ROUSE the ROUSE / Reveille sounded; the living recalled
to duty (Commonwealth practice; NEVER US "Taps")
9. MARCH OFF parade brought to order and marched off; FLAGS at
HALF-MAST for the mourning; bearing held to the end
The exact form varies, and you bend it to the occasion. A small establishment burying a national who served may render a simpler set of honours than a full parade; the rite of the family may have no place for a firing party, and where it does not, there is none, without complaint or apology, because the honours serve the family and not the Army's display. Where the place of committal cannot safely take a firing party, or the family would be distressed by the volleys, you advise the presiding officer and the honour is adjusted. None of this lowers the standard; it fits the standard to the day. Your skill is in reading the occasion rightly and arranging the honours so that they support the family's grief and never intrude upon it.
The honours rendered to the dead
The honours have a settled meaning, and you should be able to teach each part to the soldiers who render it, because a soldier who understands what he is doing renders it better. The coffin is draped with the National Flag, laid over it correctly oriented as the senior flag of the Principality and the emblem of the State the soldier served; this is one of the proper uses of the National Flag, and it is the flag that drapes the coffin, never a consecrated Colour. The bearer party carries it in slow time, the weight hidden. Where a firing party is found and the rite allows, it fires volleys of blank, customarily three, each as a single body on the word of command, the Army's formal salute in arms to the dead. The Last Post is sounded, the bugle call that closes the soldier's day and here sounds the farewell to one whose duty is done; a silence is kept; and then the Rouse is sounded, recalling the living to their duty.
Bear in mind that all on parade share in the rendering, not only those with a part to play with hand or weapon. The escort comes, where the drill so provides, to rest on arms reversed, muzzle to the ground and head bowed; the parade as a whole holds the bearing of grief, slow, controlled, eyes level, no haste. You supervise this bearing as closely as any movement, because a single soldier looking about, shifting, or breaking the stillness is seen at once at a funeral, where the watching is intent and the silences are long. Stillness held through a long, cold committal is itself a form of drill, and you have prepared the soldiers for it: weight even, knees unlocked enough that the blood does not pool, eyes fixed on a far point, the mind settled rather than fighting the stand. The soldier who feels faint falls out properly or is helped out by the relief you told off, and does not sway and topple in the ranks. The bearing of the whole parade is the honour as much as any single movement, and the whole of it is yours to hold.
The National Flag upon the coffin
The conduct of the National Flag is the most visible honour of the funeral and the one most easily confused with the Colours, so hold it clearly and teach it clearly. The coffin is draped with the National Flag, a flag, and not with a consecrated Colour. It is laid over the coffin correctly oriented, the place of honour set as the custom of the Service provides, and it lies there throughout the procession, borne by the bearer party in the slow march. It is the State the soldier served, laid over the soldier who served it, and it is among the plainest and most powerful honours the Army renders.
The flag is not buried. Before the committal the bearer party lifts it clear and folds it with ceremony, deliberately and without haste, into the close, exact fold the Service keeps, every motion matched and silent. This is the movement you rehearse hardest after the slow march itself, because a fold fumbled or hurried mars the very moment the family will remember longest, and there is no second attempt. Drill it until the party can fold with their eyes on the work and their bearing composed, the corners brought together cleanly, the final fold tight and square, the flag passed to the soldier who will present it without a flap or a sag. The folded flag is then presented to the next of kin, placed into the hands of a widow, a parent, a child, with quiet dignity and a steady look, as a token of the State's gratitude and the Army's honour. To a family this small act is often the whole of the funeral they carry longest: the flag of the Principality, folded by steady hands and given to them, telling them without a word that their soldier mattered to the Army that buried him and to the State he served.
THE FOLD AND PRESENTATION OF THE NATIONAL FLAG
1. flag lies over the coffin, correctly oriented
+-----------------------------------+
| /////////// N A T I O N A L /// |
| /////////// F L A G /// |
+-----------------------------------+
2. LIFT clear -> FOLD: matched, silent, close and exact
the bearer party folds with eyes on the work,
bearing composed; corners clean; final fold square
3. the folded flag 4. PRESENTED to the
+---------+ NEXT OF KIN, placed
|/////////| --------------> into the hands with
|/////////| quiet dignity and a
+---------+ steady look
The flag is NOT buried. It goes to the family.
(The flag is a FLAG -- never a consecrated Colour.)
A word on the consecrated Colour, because a Colour may be present at the funeral of one entitled to it, and you must instruct its bearer rightly. Where the Colour is carried in the procession it is draped in crape as its mark of mourning, a band of black crape tied to the pike below the finial, borne on its pike by its bearer as always, and it is not dipped to the dead, for the Colour is dipped only to the Sovereign. The Colour honours the dead by its presence and its mourning, not by any lowering. Keep the two objects firmly apart and make sure your soldiers do: the flag drapes the coffin and is folded and given to the family; the Colour, if present, is draped in crape and carried, dipped to no one but the Sovereign and half-masted never.
The conventions of mourning: flags half-masted, Colours never
This is the rule that the careless get wrong, and as the NCO running the parade you are the one who must get it right and hold others to it. Flags are half-masted. Consecrated Colours are not. A flag, whether the National Flag or the Army Ensign, is a piece of cloth flown on a mast or a staff, hoisted to the peak by halyard and lowered the same way, and so it can be lowered to a marked position below the peak as a sign of mourning. That lowering is half-masting, the most public sign the Principality has of its grief. A Colour is a different thing altogether: a consecrated emblem of the Army's identity and its loyalty to the Crown, not flown on a mast but borne on a pike, carried in the hand of its bearer and lodged with honour when not on parade. A thing carried on a pike has no peak to be raised to and no halyard to lower it by. You cannot half-mast a Colour for the plain reason that it was never on a mast.
So the Colour mourns by its own form, complete and correct: it is draped with black crape below the finial, or it is cased, carried covered in its protective case. That is the whole of its mourning, and it is no lesser a mark for being different. To attempt to half-mast a Colour, to lower the pike or trail the Colour as though it were a flag dipped low, would be to mistake what a Colour is and to dishonour it, and it is exactly the error you exist to prevent. The half-masting of a flag has its own exact form, which you supervise: the flag is first hoisted fully to the peak, and only then lowered to the half-mast position; it is never raised directly to half-mast, because the hoist to the peak is the salute the flag renders before it is lowered in grief, and to raise it again or strike it, it is first brought back to the peak. The authority matters as much as the form: the order to half-mast comes from the Royal Court, not from local discretion, so that the Principality mourns as one and on proper authority.
IN MOURNING: FLAGS vs CONSECRATED COLOURS
HOW IT IS FLOWN / HOW IT MOURNS
CARRIED
--------------- ------------------- ----------------------
NATIONAL FLAG flown on a mast; HALF-MASTED (hoisted
ARMY ENSIGN hoisted by halyard to the PEAK first,
then lowered; order
of the ROYAL COURT)
--------------- ------------------- ----------------------
THE CONSECRATED borne on a PIKE in DRAPED with black crape,
COLOURS the hand of its or CASED
bearer NEVER half-masted
(no mast to lower it on)
dipped ONLY to the
Sovereign, never the dead
--------------- ------------------- ----------------------
WHY: a flag is FLOWN and can be lowered; a Colour is CARRIED
on a pike and cannot. Different objects, different mourning.
The NCO HOLDS this line and instructs the soldiers in it.
The bereaved family and the chaplain's place
The choreography of a funeral is only its outward form. At its heart is a grieving family and a comrade lost, and the honours mean nothing if the human care beneath them is absent. To carry the coffin steadily, to fold the flag with reverence, to present it to a widow or a parent with quiet dignity, is to tell a family without a word that their loss is seen and shared and that their soldier mattered. As the NCO running it, you carry a particular share of this care, because it is you who arranges the practical things that spare the family every avoidable burden: that they are met and guided, that they know where to stand and when, that a chair is found for the one who needs it, that nothing is asked of them that the Army can do for them. The family should carry nothing, and the things they are spared are the things you have quietly arranged.
The bereaved have needs that drill cannot meet, and you should understand where your part ends and another's begins. The grief of a family, the long aftermath of a death, the questions of meaning and faith a death raises, these are carried by the chaplain and, where the family wishes, by the ministers of their own tradition. The chaplain's place at a military funeral is central, not incidental: it is the chaplain who conducts or supports the rites, who sits with the family before and after, who is the confidential ear and the bridge to the family's own community of faith, and who is trained for the depths of grief in a way an untrained soldier, however kind, is not. Part of your running of the funeral is coordinating with the chaplain so that the honours and the rites fit together without a seam, the volleys and the calls falling exactly where the order of service provides and never cutting across a prayer or a reading. You serve the chaplain's work; you do not compete with it.
What the soldiers under you can offer, and what you teach them to offer, is real and within reach. It is presence: a steady, calm, respectful presence that does not flee from grief or hurry it along. It is the small dignity of doing each part perfectly, because to a family the steadiness of the bearer party is the message. And it is restraint: the soldier does not preach, does not explain the death, does not offer the well-meant phrases that make a loss smaller than it is, and does not promise answers he cannot give. If a grieving family member speaks to a soldier, he answers honestly and gently, and where the need runs deeper than he can carry, the chaplain is brought to them. Respect for the dead and care for the bereaved are two faces of one duty, the Army's value of Respect for Others made visible, and you owe both and see that your soldiers render both.
In Practice: The NCO Who Carried Nothing of His Own
A small establishment loses one of its own, a national who served and died in service, and a sergeant is given three days to make the funeral ready. He does not begin with the drill; he begins with the family and the chaplain, learning the rite the family keeps, the place of committal, the time of the service, the things the family wishes and the things their tradition requires. From the fixed moments he works the timings backwards, builds in his margins, and walks the route himself, up the real steps and through the real doorway, so that no kerb is met for the first time on the day. Only then does he select his bearer party, six of even height and steady bearing, and a relief told off against a bearer taken ill, and he tells them plainly that they have been trusted with a comrade's last carriage. They rehearse with a weighted coffin until the lift is silent and the slow march is one body and the fold of the flag needs no thought, and he gives the words of command low.
On the day it goes as it was prepared, which is to say the family notices none of the preparation at all. They are met and guided; a chair is found for the dead soldier's mother; they are never made to wait and never asked to decide. The bearer party carries the coffin in slow time, the weight hidden, the National Flag lying over it correctly oriented. The chaplain leads the rites and the family's tradition leads the chaplain, and the sergeant stands back and times the honours to the order of service, so that nothing cuts across a prayer. Before the committal the party lifts the flag clear and folds it close and square and presents it to the mother, who holds it as though it were her son. The firing party renders its three volleys as one; the bugler sounds the Last Post into the silence, the parade stands wholly still, and then the Rouse lifts them from it. There is no "Taps", for that is not the Army's call. The establishment's Colour, draped in crape, is carried but dipped to no one, for it is dipped only to the Sovereign; the flag on the staff stands at half-mast on the Royal Court's order. When the mother's composure breaks, no soldier flinches or looks away, because the sergeant drilled the stillness as hard as the slow march. Afterward she thanks him, and he says only that it was an honour, and means it. Nothing he did was dramatic, and that is the whole of it: he carried every burden himself so that the family carried nothing, and in running it surely and quietly he gave a grieving family the steady, dignified honour the Army owes its dead.
Check Your Understanding
You are the NCO charged with preparing a bearer party for the funeral of a national who served. Explain how you select the party and why, and set out what you rehearse and why you rehearse with a weighted coffin and on the real ground. Explain why the fold of the National Flag is drilled as hard as the slow march.
Set out the order of a military funeral from forming up to march-off, naming the parts in sequence, and explain how you work the timings and fit the military honours to the rite of the dead. Then explain the conduct of the National Flag upon the coffin from draping to folding to presentation, and say why the flag is not buried; and explain why the Rouse, and not the United States "Taps", is the call the Army sounds after the Last Post and the silence.
Explain the firm difference between a flag and a consecrated Colour in mourning. Why is the National Flag half-masted while a Colour is draped or cased and never half-masted, and who orders the half-masting? Then explain the chaplain's central place and the NCO's part in caring for the bereaved family, and what your soldiers can rightly offer and what they must leave to the chaplain.
Reflection (write a short paragraph): This lesson holds that the measure of an NCO's work at a funeral is its invisibility: that on a guard of honour the standard is meant to be seen, but at a funeral it is meant to disappear, so that the family carries nothing and sees only their soldier carried with care. Think about why the hardest-prepared parade is the one that should look effortless, and why the things a grieving family is spared, the waiting, the deciding, the ragged moment, are exactly the things you have quietly arranged in advance. Then think about the firm convention beneath it all, that flags are half-masted and Colours are draped because a flag is flown on a mast and a Colour is carried on a pike, and consider why an NCO who renders such exact honours to one who can no longer know it is given is an NCO the Army can trust with the living. What does it say about you, and about the Army, that the last honours are run with the greatest care of all?
Summary
- The NCO's charge at a funeral is to build and run it so the family carries nothing: select and drill the bearer party, rehearse the firing party and bugler, set the timings and route, supervise turnout and bearing, coordinate with the chaplain, and put right quietly whatever falters. The officer commands and the soldiers render the honours; the NCO makes it certain, and the measure of the work is its invisibility.
- The bearer party is selected for even height, steady bearing, and composure, with a relief told off against a bearer taken ill; it is rehearsed with a weighted coffin on the real ground until the lift is silent, the slow march is one body, and the fold of the flag needs no thought, on quiet words of command.
- A military funeral renders the last honours in slow time and in a settled order, with timings worked backwards from the fixed moments and the military framework fitted to the rite of the dead: form up and receive, procession, the rites (the family's tradition leading, the chaplain conducting), the flag folded and presented, the volleys, the Last Post, the silence, the Rouse, the march-off, bearing held to the end.
- The honours are the National Flag draping the coffin (a flag, not a Colour), the bearer party in slow time, the firing party's three volleys where rendered, and the Last Post, the silence, and the Rouse; all on parade share in the rendering, the escort at rest on arms reversed and the whole parade holding the bearing of grief, which the NCO supervises as closely as any movement.
- The National Flag is not buried: it is lifted clear, folded close and exact, and presented to the next of kin, the act a family carries longest. The funeral soundings are the Last Post and the Rouse (or Reveille), the Commonwealth calls the Army keeps, and they are never the United States "Taps".
- Flags are half-masted; consecrated Colours are not. A flag is flown on a mast and lowered to half-mast, hoisted to the peak first and never raised directly to it, on the order of the Royal Court; a Colour is borne on a pike and so mourns by being draped in crape or cased, dipped only to the Sovereign and half-masted never. The NCO holds this line and instructs the soldiers in it.
- The honours mean nothing without the human care beneath them: the chaplain's place is central, conducting the rites and carrying the family's grief; the NCO coordinates the honours to the order of service and arranges the practical things that spare the family every burden; the soldiers offer presence and restraint and refer the deeper need onward. All of it is the Army's value of Respect for Others, owed even to the dead, kept by the young RKA with care and honesty.
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