PFC Francis Patrick Martin
The funeral started at 8:45am in the morning of Friday March 24, 2023, with a Catholic service at the Old Post Chapel, during a light but steady spring rain. The chapel is located at Fort Myer (which requires clearing a security checkpoint to access), and is right next to Arlington National Cemetery. The Old Post Chapel was built in 1934 and hosts over 900 funeral services every year.
Our grandfather was buried at Arlington with a military funeral honors and a funeral escort. This included a casket team (with pallbears), a firing party, a bugler, a military band and a caisson. There are a lot of funerals at Arlington, up to thirty can take place every single day, so there are well thought out schedules and procedures at every step. When we arrived at the Old Post Chapel, we were escorted to a private room before the service, and did not realize that the light rain had gotten heavier, or that the escort and band had assembled, until we exited the chapel.
The Old Post Chapel and our grandfather’s gravesite were only about 500 feet apart, but due to the way that the gates and roads are designed at Arlington, our funeral procession followed a mile long route through the rain on roads named after Civil War legends like William Tecumseh Sherman and Montgomery Meigs, lesser known Civil War legends Ord and Weizel (who also have a cemetery gate at Arlington built under the direction of General Montgomery Meigs himself) and finally to the first road at Arlington National Cemetery named after a woman- Ida Lewis, a Rhode Island lighthouse keeper from the 1880s known for her heroism. The procession also passed right by Arlington House, the one time home of Robert E Lee and his wife, a great granddaughter of George Washington. Lee lost the house during the Civil War, when the US thought that (for many reasons) his front lawn would be a favorable location for a cemetery. Since then over 400,000 people have been buried there.
The procession through the rain was led by the US Army band and firing team, followed by the Caisson Platoon carrying our grandfather’s flag draped coffin, with a team of seven horses pulling the caisson. Behind the caisson, attendees followed in cars.
Slightly out of chronological order, these are some (non professional) photos of our visit to the Caisson Platoon Stables following the funeral, where we learned about their history and were able to meet some of the horses. We visited on the stables (located at Fort Myer) on the afternoon of the funeral but were unable to visit with the mixed team that pulled our grandfather’s caskets since they were still working that day. The caissons themselves were built a hundred years ago to carry cannons and were adapted to carry coffins instead, and the horses were well exceptionally well trained and each of them had a lot of personality, including one that really liked our peppermint Altoids.
Back at Arlington, the procession ended at Section 81, part of a recent expansion in the area near the Old Post Chapel and Fort Myer. The expansion was designed to increase capacity, and along with new policies, should allow for burials to continue there for another 40 years. One of the new policies is that the military now restricts who can be buried and almost all funerals at Arlington now are at above ground columbariums- walls where ashes are interred. Our grandfather, who was killed in action, was eligible for an in ground burial, and assigned to Section 81.
Once we were seated at the gravesite, a short service by US Army Chaplain Marcin Bulinski began.
Following a short service, the seven person firing team shot three volleys, and the US Army bugler played “Taps,”
At the conclusion of the service, the casket team folded and presented the flag, and the family was greeted by additional attendees including Kathy Norrie of the Army Arlington Ladies, Fern Sumpter Winbush who is the Principal Deputy Director of the DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) and Robert Quackenbush, the Deputy Chief of Staff at Arlington National Cemetery. All of these presentations are included in the video on the next page.
Coming up on the next page: