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LATHAM, New York—New York Air National Guard Base Honor Guards expect to provide military funeral honors for the families of 1,990 veterans by the end of 2023.
These figures are based on funeral tallies as of Dec. 21, and estimates of funerals to be conducted by 1 January 2024.
In 2022, 2,072 families were served by New York Air National Guard honor guard teams, and in 2021, funeral honors were conducted 2,156 times.
In 2020 that number was 1,685. The year before that number was 2,043.
Federal law requires the military to provide honors at the funerals of any former members of the U.S. military who were not dishonorably discharged. This includes members of the reserves and National Guard.
Army Guard honor guard’s provide honors for Army veterans, while the Air Guard conducts funeral for Air Force vets.
The New York Air National Guard has 22 Airmen with a full-time funeral honors mission, and 68 volunteers. Each of the five Air National Guard bases maintains a Base Honor Guard which provides funeral services to Air Force veterans across a specific region of the state.
Airmen on the details are trained to ensure that everything they do meets exacting standards. These range from the uniforms they wear, to the way they fold the flag presented to families.
This training ensures that the honor guard Airmen perform the movements of the ceremonies flawlessly, according to Air National Guard Chief Master Sgt. James Jarmacz, who heads the 174th Attack Wing honor guard at Hancock Air National Base in Syracuse.
This is important because of the role the honor guards play, he explained.
“This may be the only military that some of these family members see,” Jarmacz said. “They see our team out there honoring their family member”.
By law, every veteran is guaranteed a two-person funeral detail.
Mandated honors include folding a flag and presenting it to the family.
While one detail member presents the flag, the other plays taps on an electronic bugle.
Retired military personnel, and those who passed away while on active duty are entitled to honors that can involve as many as twenty Airmen.
These can include a rifle firing party and pallbearers.
It can be a challenge making sure Airmen make every funeral or service on time, said Air Guard Master Sgt. Alan Sanchez, whose 106th Rescue Wing honor guard covers Long Island and New York City.
That makes his 27-member team working out of F.S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base, one of the busiest in the Air Force, Sanchez said.
His Airmen cover the massive Calverton National Cemetery in Wading River, as well as a host of funeral homes, Sanchez said. To avoid delays in traveling from Westhampton Beach on the eastern end of Long Island, where the 106th is based, they “work from the field,” he said.
“We are one of the few offices that meet all our requirements,” he said. “We work seven days a week.”
But Sanchez, who has been in the honor guard business for 15 years, first in the Army Guard and then in the Air Guard, said the number of funeral services is dropping.
“Whether it has to do with enlistment numbers, and fewer veterans and fewer servicemembers that served in that time period, there is a ten percent decrease in funerals,” Sanchez said.
According to the website USA Facts, in 2022 there were 580, 856 veterans living in New York, down 35 percent from 2012, when the number was 885,400.
According to the Veterans Administration, the number of veterans in New York is dropping at just over 3 percent annually.
The World War II generation, with 16 million veterans, was the largest group of veterans for years. But now, according to the National World War II Museum, only an estimated 119,000 World War II veterans are still living.
While the over all number of veterans funerals is dropping, his sense is that there is more work for Air Guard honor guards, said Jarmacz.
Many of the funerals for World War II-era Air Force veterans were conducted by the Army, he explained, because the Air Force was part of the Army then.
As that generation has passed, more Air Force veterans only served in the Air Force, so providing their honors is the job of Air Guard and Air Force honor guard teams, Jarmacz said.
Both Army and Air Guard honor guard members say they love what they do, but the job can be “emotionally taxing,” according to Sanchez.
“Some people cannot deal with the emotional stress,” he said.
But it is worth it, Sanchez emphasized.
“This is probably the best mission I have ever been apart of in both branches,” he said.
The New York Air National Guard’s base honor guards have conducted the following funerals in 2023:
• 105th Airlift Wing, Newburgh, Hudson Valley: 236.
• 106th Rescue Wing, Westhampton Beach, Long Island:633.
• 107th Attack Wing, Niagara Falls (With Air Force Reserves 914th Refueling Wing): 428.
• 109th Airlift Wing, Schenectady: 229.
• 174th Attack Wing, Syracuse: 362.
• Eastern Air Defense Sector, Rome: 68.
| Date Taken: | 12.22.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 12.26.2023 05:49 |
| Story ID: | 460686 |
| Location: | LATHAM , NEW YORK, US |
| Web Views: | 726 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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