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PrintThe Honor Guard honors the fallen
Jack and Lois Hoskinson are dedicated to ensuring that fallen military receive a flag ceremony in honor of their service.
Commander Jack Hoskinson and his wife, Lois, are passionate about seeing that former military servicemen can be buried with a flag ceremony.
In the past five years, they have performed such rituals at about 1,000 funerals — all at no cost and virtually all for people they never knew.
They began with an American Legion post in Broken Arrow, but when that group elected not to continue such services, they went out on their own. They incorporated the American Veterans Honor Guard “to provide full military funeral honors for active-duty members, retirees and veterans who served honorably in any branch of the American Armed Forces,” according to the Honor Guard Web site.
The Honor Guard consists of Jack, the commander; Lois, the adjutant; their son and his wife; and half a dozen longtime friends. But Jack and Lois do almost all the funeral ceremonies themselves.
“They are a great couple, they do a great job,” says Carole Coleman, a funeral director who has worked with them for about six years.
Their service is “very meaningful … very symbolic, it gets you in the heart,” says another funeral director, Lyndal McMillan.
John Lay, a minister who has worked with the Hoskinsons both at funerals and at a Claremore veterans’ center, where he is a chaplain, called their ceremony “very professional and very respectful.”
Families agree.
“Everybody is just more than pleased with the service they do,” says Agatha Asher Morton of Bristow, who has used the Hoskinsons in three family funerals. “I’ve seen others (perform flag ceremonies) but not near what they do.”
Part of what distinguishes the Honor Guard ceremony is speaking. Many honor ceremonies, including those provided by active military and similar units, are silent, with a ritual folding of the American flag and its presentation to the widow or other family members, a rifle salute and a concluding “Taps” on a bugle.
In an Honor Guard ceremony, Jack offers some comments about the branch of military in which the deceased served and talks about the importance of preserving freedom and the American life. Then he plays “Taps” and fires a three-shot salute from a rifle. He then presents the flag. Lois also presents to the widow or family member a poppy — a symbol of those killed during World War I — and a “bent shell” — the empty casings from the salute.
The overall ceremony is “Very, very good … brings to life what it’s about … so personal and heartfelt,” Lay says.
At the Claremore center, on the first Friday of every month, the Hoskinsons organize a special but similar ceremony, honoring all the veterans who died the previous month.
“It is obvious they love to do it and it is an honor to do it,” Lay says.
The Hoskinsons will go almost anywhere in eastern Oklahoma. They also organize parades, school graduations and other events when asked.
The Hoskinsons never charge, although they accept donations and honorariums. Some years those offset the personal expenses, mainly gasoline and travel, but last year they did not. The Hoskinsons make up the difference with their Social Security income.
Funeral homes arrange for the flags, which are generally provided free from the government to those who can prove military service with honorable discharge. Funeral homes also contact the Hoskinsons when families request a flag ceremony. Some families prefer regular military services, from units at Fort Sill, Tinker Air Force Base or other installations. But those are not always easily arranged and usually are reserved for career servicemen or those killed on duty.
Flag ceremonies usually are done at the graveside, but the Hoskinsons have done some in chapels or churches, when families requested or circumstances prohibited an outdoor service.
Jack served in the Army during the Korean War, then became a salesman in his native Kansas. The couple came to Tulsa in 1964, Jack as an insurance salesman. Then he and Lois operated a beauty shop for 10 years before he became a Tulsa Transit driver.
After their retirement, Lois says that they “realized veterans were being buried without a ceremony.” They were retired and looking for something to occupy their time. Now, she says, “Our time is well occupied.”
Taps
The secret to a perfect “Taps” may lie more with the bugle than with the bugler.
Many who perform that traditional tune at funerals, Boy Scout campfires and myriad other events now rely not so much on musical skill and training but on technology. It’s possible — and almost universal — to get a bugle that actually comes with a small recording device.
Just turn it on and it will produce a flawless “Taps” every time.
Even many of those military units that include “Taps” in various rituals use the special bugles.
At one event, a military bugler was heard to brag, “Never miss a note.”
An expert and somewhat cynical observer then commented: “Yes, until your batteries die.”
