In the last six years, Bob Trout has played the slow, haunting strains of "Taps" at 500 local veterans' funerals.
Trout's previous bugle experience ended at Boy Scout camp, making his current feat even more impressive.
In 2001, Trout joined the Red Rose Veterans Honor Guard, which performs military honors at veterans' funeral.
"I decided I was going to get a trumpet and try to play," he says. "I knew it was something (the honor guard) needed."
As Memorial Day approaches, Trout and other area veterans are once again serving where they're needed, saluting their fellow soldiers with gestures from parades to serenades.
In 2008, the local honor guard rendered military honors at 364 veterans' funerals, playing "Taps" and presenting a folded American flag to the family.
Trout, of Akron, served three years in the U.S. Air Force and 17 years in the Navy Reserves.
Since joining the honor guard, he has attended some 2,000 funerals, including one for a 106-year-old World War I veteran.
"(Playing the bugle) is harder than you think," says Trout, who taught himself to play at age 64. "It's hard to do when it's really cold."
"Taps," he says, is actually one of the easier songs to play, because it's slow.
Trout used to dread going to work. Now that he's retired, he finds volunteering with the honor guard much more satisfying.
"It's an honor to do it," he says.
Leader of the Bands
When Rich Bryant walked into his first American Legion meeting, the other members saw an opportunity.
Bryant, of Brickerville, joined Lititz Post 56 at age 29, injecting invaluable youth and energy into a membership of mostly senior citizens.
Bryant, who served six years in the National Guard, including a six-month peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, soon stepped forward to take charge of organizing the annual Lititz Memorial Day parade.
The parade, which starts at 10:45 a.m. Monday, forms behind Wilbur Chocolate Factory and proceeds to the Lititz Moravian Church cemetery.
The 20-minute parade features bands, fire trucks, scouts, motorcyclists and Civil War re-enactors, along with a riderless horse and local veterans, whose number, Bryant notes, is shrinking every year.
Most of Bryant's planning involves making phone calls, lining up a speaker — and making a mad dash to the cemetery once the participants line up and the parade steps off.
He says it's gratifying to see such an enthusiastic display of patriotism.
"I do it for the post, for the ones that served," Bryant says. "It's what the day is all about.
"It's nice to see that people remember."
He's Got Their Back
Lt. Dr. Andy Baldwin's commitment to helping fallen soldiers' families began when he lost two close friends, both Navy Seals, in Afghanistan.
"I knew their families and saw the impact it had on them," he says.
Baldwin, a Lancaster native, is a Navy medical officer and former star of the ABC reality show "The Bachelor."
He currently lives in Washington, D.C., where he recruits Navy doctors and supports a variety of charitable and health-related causes.
Last year Baldwin founded the Got Your Back Network, which connects families with everything from volunteer mentors to funding for education and health-care needs.
"So much emphasis is placed on wounded-warrior care, oftentimes families get forgotten," Baldwin says.
"Some of these kids didn't even get to know their parents."
Got Your Back (gotyourbacknetwork.org) has already hosted free makeovers for moms and special events for hundreds of children, including trips to Disneyland and a N.J. Nets basketball game.
Baldwin, who is due to leave on a two-month deployment aboard the USNS Comfort, hopes GYBN will eventually offer summer camps and expanded mentorship opportunities.
"We're an up-and-coming organization," he says. "We're getting our feet under us and doing what we can."
Flags for the Fallen
The 5,000 American flags lining the entrance to Fort Indiantown Gap National Cemetery are a moving sight.
"It's one of those beautiful things that stands for something bad," says Ed Walter, a Marietta Coast Guard veteran.
Walter works with a crew of veterans from the Lancaster Navy Club and a Harrisburg Masonic group to place the flags at the Annville cemetery before Memorial Day.
The four-year-old display takes seven to 10 men five days to lay out and place. Each flag represents a veteran killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"It's a big project," Walter says. "Five thousand flags is a lot of work.
"This is a steep bank, and the guys aren't too young anymore."
This year, at the request of cemetery visitors, the flags will remain up for two weeks — twice as long as last year, Walter says.
The veterans will also arrange 221 state flags in the shape of a keystone, representing Pennsylvania casualties.
"That's a big thing, to have people step forward and say, 'I'll go (to war),' " Walter says. "They know some of them aren't going to come back."
The groups recently raised $5,000 to support the display, mostly to purchase new ribbons to adorn the flags.
Every year there are more flags.
Once Memorial Day passes, it takes just three hours to put them all away.
CONTACT THE NEW ERA: mschweigert@LNPnews.com or 291-8757 
