September 16, 2001
'Taps' gives voice to West Point's grief
By Kristina Wells
The Times Herald-Record
kwells@th-record.com
West Point – No words were spoken. No tears were visible. No candles lit their faces.
The darkness covered the United States Military Academy at West Point shortly before midnight Friday. A single white light illuminated a lone bugler, bagpipers and a color guard.
It was a moment. A moment called the Taps Vigil, an exclusive and private tradition reserved for the death of a cadet or a president. A moment that, up until Friday, no one outside of West Point had seen.
For the first time, a television crew and other media were permitted to document this private mourning. And the nation watched.
Saluting gunshots rang out, shattering the silence and echoing through the valley.
The green and red lights on a passing jet winked at the thousands of cadets lined along The Plain.
A woman whispered. A plane in the sky seems reassuring, doesn't it?
Silence again.
The cadets kept coming, dressed in their crisp white shirts and gray pants, caps on their bowed heads.
And then the bugler spoke. No words. Just "Taps."
Then silence, again.
The cadets didn't shift on their feet. They didn't reach a hand to their face to wipe a tear. They didn't cry out their pain.
A bagpiper did it for them. Then another, and still another. Amazing Grace never sounded so sweet to the ears of so many seeking hope and solace.
Silence descended yet again.
A small group of officers, base residents and their children stood off to the side. They, too, needed this moment. They, too, felt the pain of a nation.
Like voices from heaven, cadets broke into song. The voices carried the academy's Alma Mater across The Plain and into the living rooms of millions. The caps came off, but the heads remained bowed.
And then silence.
The caps returned. And the march began. The cadets peeled off and headed back toward barracks.
Silent. Solemn. Solid.
The lamps along The Plain hummed. A soft pink light cast shadows across the faces of cadets who continued to grieve, heads bowed, knees to the ground, caps off.
The onlookers turned to go. The lights inside the barracks clicked on one by one. The bugler, the bagpipers and the color guard vanished.
And in the distance, a lone cadet knelt in prayer under a lamp post at the edge of The Plain.
He held that pose for what seemed an eternity, until two cadets came to take him home.
They spoke no words. They mourned in silence.
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