With a dented bugle, he brings dignity

Mike McCann, 14, plays taps at military funerals, then goes off to algebra.

By Cynthia Anderson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the April 25, 2007 edition

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HINGHAM, MASS. - On a blustery spring day, when other eighth graders are midway through their morning classes, Mike McCann stands with his trumpet on the steps of the Church of the Resurrection, awaiting the signal to play. The sun briefly shines then disappears. Dressed in a buttoned-down shirt and tuxedo pants, Mike looks cold.

He waits alongside a color guard as the family of Louis Giordani, a 73-year-old former member of the US Coast Guard, assembles at the foot of the steps next to Giordani's casket. Finally Mike lifts his instrument to his lips, and the first somber notes of taps fill the air.

The piece is short, just 24 notes lasting less than a minute, and is soon replaced by the sound of traffic on nearby Route 228. When he plays, Mike says he often thinks of his grandfather, at whose funeral in North Carolina he first performed taps three years ago.

That day, as a flag was draped over his grandfather's casket to commemorate his Army service in World War II, Mike began to play. He'd been asked to do so by his father. The older McCann recalls worrying that given the intensity of the moment, he might make a mistake. But Mike played perfectly, holding his emotions in check until after he'd finished.

"Then I cried," says Mike. "I was only 11."

A bagpiper who was also there urged Mike to begin taking part in other services. There was, and remains, a shortage of brass players to perform taps live at military burials across the country – so much so that in 2002 the Defense Department developed an electronic bugle fitted with a prerecorded version of taps. That bugle is held to the lips, and a button is pushed to release the melody. While preferable to a CD in a boom box, or no bugler at all, it's an alternative that many consider inadequate, even inappropriate.

"There's a big difference between a fake bugle and a real one. They don't sound the same," says Mike.

And according to Tom Day, founder of Buglers Across America (BAA), to which Mike belongs, the authenticity of the experience is as important as the music itself. "Taps is supposed to be a tribute to a veteran's life, not a recorded message," says Mr. Day, a man whose existence centers on taps and all that relates to it. "What it comes down to is the military decided they didn't really need musicians anymore. They thought the [electronic] bugle would get the job done. But we're intent on saving live music."

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