Military Funeral Program

The order of service, written out

A military funeral is an ordinary funeral with honors attached, usually at the graveside. The program carries both: the service on one panel, the committal and honors on the next, so the people who follow you to the cemetery know what is coming.

At a VA national cemetery the shape is different. The committal is held in a covered shelter on a schedule rather than at the gravesite, the casket is not lowered while the family is present, and the time allotted is short. Keep the program to one page and let the honors carry it.

The general shape of a funeral service, and how the pieces fit for other kinds of gathering, is on the funeral order of service page.

What military honors actually include

Honors are rendered by a detail from the branch the person served in, often working with a local VFW or American Legion honor guard. What you will see, in order:

1. 1

   The casket is carried to the shelter or the grave

   A military casket team does this at a full-honors funeral. Otherwise family and friends serve as pallbearers, with the honors detail standing by. There is more on choosing them in pallbearer duties.

2. 2

   The committal

   A minister, a chaplain or a family member reads the committal words. This is a normal part of the service, not a military one, and it usually runs two or three minutes.

3. 3

   Three-volley salute

   A rifle party, usually of seven, fires three rounds each. It is loud, and it startles people who are not expecting it, so warn anyone with young children or a heart condition beforehand. When no firing party is available, the service goes straight from the committal to Taps.

4. 4

   Taps

   Twenty-four notes, about a minute. A live bugler plays it when one can be found. When one cannot, the detail uses a ceremonial bugle with a recorded insert, and it is played standing in the same position, with the same salute.

5. 5

   The flag is folded

   Two service members lift the flag from the casket, hold it level, and fold it thirteen times into a triangle until only the blue field and the stars show. It takes a few minutes and it is done in silence.

6. 6

   The flag is presented

   One member kneels before the next of kin, presents the folded flag, and speaks the words of presentation quietly enough that usually only the family hears them.

Full honors, with a casket team, a firing party, an escort and sometimes a band or a caisson, depend on rank, status and what the branch can provide that week. The funeral director will tell you what has been confirmed. Print only what has been confirmed.

The flag: the folding, the words, and who keeps it

The flag drapes the casket with the blue field at the head and over the left shoulder. After Taps it is folded into the familiar triangle and presented. The words spoken at the presentation are close to this, with the branch name changed:

Branches vary the wording slightly, and the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force and Coast Guard each name themselves in place of the Army. Some families ask for the line to be printed on the back of the program. That is a fine thing to do, and it saves the family from trying to remember it later.

One flag is furnished per veteran. If several children will want one, decide in advance who holds it, and consider a display case as a shared gift rather than a contested one. Families sometimes ask about a reading on the meaning of the thirteen folds. It is a widely circulated modern script, not an official one, and honor guards do not recite it. If you want it in the program, ask the funeral director whether the detail will pause for it, and check before you print.

Rank and branch on the cover

The cover of a military program looks like any other funeral program with one line added: the branch, and usually the rank. Spell the branch out in full. Abbreviations look like paperwork.

Emblems of belief, unit crests and branch seals are usually placed small, at the foot of the cover or beside the service record. Keep one photograph large rather than three photographs small. The panel-by-panel layout for the rest of the booklet is on the funeral program format page.

The service record page

An inside panel listing service dates, units and decorations is the one thing a military program has that others do not. Keep it factual and short. It reads best as a list, not a paragraph.

Nearly all of this comes off one document: the DD Form 214, the discharge paper. Veterans often keep it with the will, in a safe deposit box, or filed with the county recorder. The funeral home needs it anyway to request honors and to apply for benefits, so it is worth fifteen minutes of looking.

If it cannot be found, next of kin can request the record from the National Personnel Records Center through the National Archives. That request takes longer than you have this week. Print what the family knows for certain, leave out anything you are guessing at, and correct the record later. Nobody at the service will be checking a citation.

Readings, poems and music for a veteran

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his own epitaph, and it has been read at services for sailors, soldiers and hunters ever since. It is in the public domain, so you can print it in full.

The words to Taps are traditional and old enough to print. Families often set them beside the line for Taps in the order of service, so the room knows what it is hearing.

Other readings that suit a veteran’s service, all in the public domain: Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson; In Flanders Fields by John McCrae; and The Bivouac of the Dead by Theodore O’Hara, lines of which are set on plaques in national cemeteries. More poems, printed in full where they are in the public domain, are on the funeral poems page.

Keep the number of musical pieces small at the graveside. Between the rifle party and Taps, the cemetery is already carrying most of the weight. More options, with first lines, are on the funeral hymns page.

How to request honors, the flag and a headstone

The funeral home does nearly all of this. You do not have to make these calls yourself, and you should not spend this week on hold. Ask your funeral director to confirm each item and to tell you what has been approved before you print the program.

You are allowed to do less than you think. A veteran can be honored with a flag, Taps, and eleven people at a graveside, and that is a full military funeral. There is no obligation to hold a church service, to print a booklet, or to invite the whole post.

If you do want a printed program and nobody in the family wants to spend the evening fighting with a template, Reposa builds it from your answers. The rank goes in the title field and prints before the name on the cover; the honors are lines you add to the order of service; and matching prayer cards come from the same details. There is no separate service record panel, so if you want the list above in the program, put it in the obituary text. The full set of layouts is on the funeral program templates page.