Reagan ceremonies to shift to nation's capital
6/8/2004
usatoday.com
From staff and wire reports
POINT MUGU, Calif. — With a wave goodbye, Nancy Reagan left California on Wednesday to bring the body of former President Ronald Reagan to Washington, D.C., for national memorial services.
By Kevork Djansezian, AP
The blue-and-white Boeing 747 that usually serves as Air Force One lifted off about 9:40 a.m. PT after a simple departure ceremony at the Navy's Point Mugu air station northwest of Los Angeles. (Photos: Reagan's journey to Washington)
A Marine Corps band played Hail to the Chief, God Bless America and Amazing Grace. A battery from the 11th Marine Artillery Regiment of the 1st Marine Division fired a thundering salute.
At the top of the aircraft stairs, Nancy Reagan waved goodbye as the crowd applauded.
The trip began earlier under gray clouds at the hilltop Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, where more than 100,000 people paid their respects during the previous two days.
Eight servicemen carried the casket to a hearse and a 45-minute motorcade brought it to Point Mugu, where hundreds of civilians and sailors in white waited under clearing blue skies to watch the jet depart for Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.
Along the way, the motorcade passed a row of firefighters saluting beneath an American flag suspended from ladders, and a well-wisher holding a sign that read "This is Reagan Country."
Crowds watched from overpasses as the procession headed along U.S. 101. Traffic on the opposite side of the freeway came to a halt and some drivers got out and stood with hands over their hearts. A big-rig driver sounded his horn as the hearse passed. "Thanks," said a sign posted on the route. (Audio:People begin to line up at the U.S. Capitol)
Harvesters in farm fields around the base climbed off tractors, removed hats from their heads and put them over their hearts. A little boy stood at attention and saluted from the tailgate of a pickup truck by an onion field. "Rest Well, President Reagan," said a sign.
From the moment his flag-draped casket appears late this afternoon at Andrews, when an honor guard of officers from all branches of the military will snap to attention and "present arms," to the playing of taps as the sun sets Friday over his burial place on the California coast, the goodbye to the nation's 40th president will be rich in symbolism and military precision. (Related graphic: The funeral of Ronald Reagan)
In the nation's capital, thousands of people are expected to line Constitution Avenue this afternoon, and millions more will watch on television. The event will likely start about 6 p.m. ET. Here's what Americans will see and hear, and the origins of some of the traditions.
Centuries-old traditions
The military's manual for "State, Official and Special Military Funerals" is extremely detailed. It states, for example, that the motorcade that will bring Reagan's body from Andrews to Washington today "will move ... at a rate of 20 miles per hour." No more, no less.
Presidents, former presidents and presidents-elect — the only people automatically eligible for state funerals — can decide before their deaths whether they want all the trappings. Their survivors can also make changes to the official plans. Security concerns can prompt more changes.
The military's official plan is built on traditions that go back as far as the nation's first official time of general mourning, for Benjamin Franklin in 1790. There are elements from the first funeral for a sitting president, William Henry Harrison's in 1841, and many from Abraham Lincoln's funeral in 1865. Reagan, his family and advisers started discussing funeral plans shortly after he took office in 1981.
The caisson, an artillery wagon built in 1918 but used only for funerals, will be pulled by six horses from the Army's 3rd U.S. Infantry, The Old Guard.
The Old Guard is famous for standing watch over Arlington National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknowns. It will be front and center in its crisp, blue, all-wool uniforms. "They like to say they do funerals as well and as proudly for a private as they do for a president," says Alan Bogan, curator at the Old Guard Museum, at Fort Myer in Arlington, Va.
Following the caisson will be a riderless horse — in this case a New Jersey-bred 13-year-old known as Sgt. York. A pair of boots, one in each stirrup, will face backward. The horse and boots, Bogan says, are meant to symbolize a fallen warrior who will never ride again. The tradition of a "caparisoned" horse goes as far back as the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan, when a warrior's mount would be led to his master's grave and then killed so that they could go on to the next life together.
Plans call for at least 64 separate groups in the funeral procession. Along with Reagan's family, all branches of the military and government will be represented. The police escort will move "at 3 miles per hour," and the marchers will move at a cadence of "100 steps per minute." Reagan's casket is due at the Capitol about 7 p.m.
Music plays large role
As the cortege arrives at the foot of Capitol Hill, a band will strike up Ruffles and Flourishes and Hail to the Chief. Capt. Cody Burton of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division will be with 11 other members of his unit in the upper Senate Park, just across Constitution Avenue from the Capitol. When he receives the cue over a two-way radio, he will fire his three 105mm cannons for a 21-volley salute.
"It's a big deal," Burton said Tuesday after he and his crew finished making the Capitol's marble walls boom with their rehearsal. "A once-in-a-lifetime experience."
After the gun salute, 21 military jets will pass over the Capitol.
Reagan's mahogany casket and remains, which together weigh more than 700 pounds, will be carried up the 99 steps of the Capitol's west side. Three teams of eight officers will divide the honor.
That's a break from the official plan, a departure made necessary by a construction project underway on the building's east side. There is symbolism in that change, though. Reagan was the first president to be inaugurated on the Capitol's west front, with its views of the National Mall and the Washington Monument.
"He used it as a symbol of his westward thinking," Senate historian Betty Koed says. "It seems he has come full circle."
Once inside the Rotunda, Reagan's casket will be placed upon a pine board and black-broadcloth-draped "catafalque." Built as a platform for the coffin of Lincoln, the first president to have lain in state in the Capitol Rotunda, it has since become a powerful historic symbol.
"It's almost as much of an honor to lie on the catafalque as it is to lie in the Rotunda, because it's Lincoln's catafalque," Koed says.
Awaiting Reagan's body at the Capitol will be a crowd of dignitaries. The guests are similar to the audience for a State of the Union address: members of the House and Senate, members of the Supreme Court, and the diplomatic corps. Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to represent President Bush, who is attending a summit of world leaders in Georgia.
Military musicians will play a short program requested by the Reagan family. On Tuesday, members of the U.S. Army Brass Quartet checked out the spot where they will perform God of Our Fathers, My Country 'Tis of Thee and God Bless America.
Tuba player Jack Tilbury reminisced about the last presidential funeral in Washington. When President Lyndon Johnson died in 1973, "it was my first year in the band," he says. He doesn't remember much but the processional: "It was right after Nixon's inaugural, and we were all practiced out."
The ceremony tonight at the Capitol is expected to last about 90 minutes. Cheney is scheduled to be among the speakers.
The military's manual stipulates that "lying in state" should last "approximately 24 hours." The last president to lie in state at the Capitol, Johnson, was there less than 18 hours. In Reagan's case, he will lie in state — and the public will be allowed to pass by his closed casket — around the clock until some time early Friday, or about 36 hours.
While in the Rotunda, an honor guard of officers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard will stand watch over the casket. Each "relief," or shift, of guards will be at attention for 30 minutes. The changing of the guard will occur in silence, according to a detailed 14-count series of movements. The only sounds should be the "distinct" clicks of the guard's heels.
Law enforcement officials expect that about 150,000 people will file through the Rotunda to view Reagan's casket.
Back to California
More than 2,000 people are expected there. Former Sen. John Danforth, an Episcopal priest, will preside. President Bush will deliver an address. The ceremony will last about 90 minutes.
At 1:15 p.m. ET, the cortege will leave the cathedral and drive to Andrews Air Force Base. From there, Reagan will be flown to Naval Base Ventura County Point Mugu in California. At 9 p.m. ET, there will be a private interment service at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley.
It's there where Sgt. Maj. Woodrow "Woody" English of The U.S. Army Band ("Pershing's Own") will perform what he calls one of the greatest honors of his life. As the ceremony draws to a close, English will play taps on his bugle. Composed during the Civil War as a signal for Union troops to "extinguish lights" at the end of the day, taps is the traditional farewell to the nation's fallen soldiers and their commanders.
English, 50, first played taps at a funeral 32 years ago when he and his brother, Tom, performed at the service for their father, Harold, a veteran. Now, English has lost count of the times he has played taps. It's easily in the thousands.
His goal Friday will be to make that performance one of his best. "I'm playing for history and for this president," English says, "and I want to make sure I do the best job possible of playing the most soulful taps I can for the leader of our country." |
