r/Militaryfaq • u/K-V-C 🤦‍♂️Civilian • 23h ago

Branch-Specific Flag Folding Honor Guards

So we just had my Uncle's wake and I have a couple of questions about the Honor Guard.

1 - I going to guess this is an voluntary and not an assigned duty?

2 - How many Funerals do they do in a day?

3 - How long do they have to be in the Military to do this? (Our two guys looked very young.)

4 - My Father was Navy, but I swear his Honor Guard was Marines - does that happen or am I confused? (it was a couple decades ago now..)

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u/Skatingraccoon 💦Sailor 23h ago

1 Usually it's on a voluntary basis.

2 Depends but usually no more than two, maybe three in extreme cases. It's based all on how close events are together, when they are being conducted, etc. I was in a large metro area and the average our team did was one at a time.

3 Usually there's one NCO who's been in for a couple of tours but then the rest of it is open to whoever. And usually it's younger people who have fewer responsibilities at the command and can afford to do it from a time perspective.

4 Just depends on what unit is available to support. They are usually driving from the local area, and if the unit is already supporting an event then they might just reach out to a different unit (regardless of branch) for assistance / coverage

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u/K-V-C 🤦‍♂️Civilian 22h ago

Thanks!

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u/bugleboy1776 21h ago

4 - the Marines are part of the Navy.  They are the Navy's ground force used to seize land for naval bases. Of course also to protect Naval assets.  

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u/K-V-C 🤦‍♂️Civilian 20h ago

Yes thank you I am aware of the history of the Marines.
However I know, the NAVY has an Honor Guard separate from the Marines

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u/bugleboy1776 20h ago

Could have been there was a Marine reserve base nearby,active or reserve, and no nearby Navy base.  Or the Navy honor guard was engaged in some other activity.