He was doing it for his grandfather — the man who helped raise him as a kid. The man who taught him how to fix almost anything. Rewiring this to light up that. A screw here to hold the whole thing together there. He showed him his tools — oh so many tools — and how to use each one.
Sometimes, after long days repairing an engine or wiring a circuit in the garage, they’d play catch. Grandpa loved baseball and so his grandson, Joseph Trujillo, loved it, too.
Then they’d go inside where the worn-out boy would climb up into the oversize chair and fall asleep in his grandpa’s lap while he watched the History Channel. Or a war movie. The retired U.S Navy man really liked the war movies.
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“He was like a second father to me,” Trujillo said. “I loved him.”
But in 2007, while staying with his mom in Illinois, she spoke the words that couldn’t possibly be true. His grandfather was dead. As an 18-year-old, still in high school and three time zones away from him, he was gut-punched.
The funeral would happen at Riverside National Cemetery. Trujillo was unable to get there for the service, which included burial with honors. He felt sadness and some pangs of guilt for not being there. He went and got a tattoo over his heart. It was Gaelic that translated to “Great Warrior” along with the year of his birth and death.
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“I was trying to let it sink in, but it wouldn’t,” Trujillo said. “Grandpa was the man and nothing was supposed to happen to that guy.”
His grandfather didn’t teach him how to fix this — the missing him, let alone missing the funeral service honoring him. He decided to enlist at 20. Then, years later at the age of 26, he thought to try something else to honor his grandfather. The U.S. Air Force Reserve senior airman, father of two and full-time electrician, asked earlier this year if he could join the Blue Eagles Total Force Honor Guard at March Air Reserve Base.
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His application was accepted. He started training. His first funeral would likely be the week before Memorial Day at Riverside National Cemetery — the place where his grandfather had been buried.
“I’ll get to show my respect for my grandpa,” he said. “Even though I couldn’t go, maybe it will feel like I was there in a sense.”
Aging veterans
From their home at March Air Reserve Base, the 25 members of the guard stationed there cover about 50,000 square-miles stretching from the Ventura County line in the north to the United States-Mexico border in the south and both Arizona and Nevada borders to the east.
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The Blue Eagles Honor Guard trains with a grueling regimen to prepare for veteran funerals
There are 30 honor guard members stationed at Edwards Air Force Base and an additional 20 at Los Angeles Air Force Base. Between them, the unit averages 159 funerals per month. Last year, they presided at 1,859 funerals. Through April, they’d already handled 722.
As veterans from the Vietnam War age and those from World War II and the Korean War ranks continue to thin, the honor guard unit is close to doubling the volume of funerals since 2001, when they did just over 1,000.
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Master Sgt. Darryl Willingham has overseen the training of airmen in the honor guard for six years. That rotation will end in January after a recent policy required rotating people out of the unit after three years of service and not allowing re-entry until taking a year’s break.
But even then, it’s rare for anyone to do six years like Willingham has.
The former U.S. Marine who was forced to leave the corps with a knee injury brings the drill instructor mindset to the small room where the honor guard trains. A guardsman leaning forward too far with the flag? Willingham starts mockingly humming “Smooth Criminal” — the music video famous for Michael Jackson and a phalanx of dancers leaning impossibly parallel to the ground. Too lax on the rifles? He whistles the theme to “The Andy Griffith Show.”
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Willingham wants to mold them into what he believes they need to be: the backbone during a service when a grieving family is at its weakest.
That means no facial expressions during the ceremony. It means the flag gets 13 folds and, by God, that eighth or 10th fold — depending on the style — had better be within inches of the second star. He’d better not see rifle barrels lined up higher than the airman’s nose. If a dry fire of volleys from the rifles is out of sync, he’ll toss a bag of popcorn at the feet of the culprit. The clicks should be in sync, not popping randomly. His ears are trained to hear an out-of-synch click and know where it came from.
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Push-ups will follow. They practice again. And again. And again. Until they get it right.
“We do not have bad funerals,” he said. “We are stepping into the family’s pain. You only have one chance to do this.”
Need for perfection
Every morning before 8. they gather in the room with a large window and lots of mirrors. Two caskets rest on gurneys and a rack of rifles rests against the wall. On the other side of the room are rows of flags.
It’s part military base, part funeral home and part ballet studio. The mirrors allow them to see the precision in their movements. The caskets and urns get them used to the furnishings of death. The Airman’s Creed on the wall reminds them who they are and why they’re there.
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The small room also has a big echo.
Willingham’s booming voice washes past the stiff line of the honor guard holding a stretched out flag. Trujillo and Airman 1st Class Brenden Sylvester are with four others as the flag gets crooked. Willingham is unhappy as the flag sags and bends into a slight S-shape. The airmen’s arms burn as they hold it still, not daring to move.
“How do we fix that?” he asks. “I don’t expect an answer. I expect you to just do it. Your concern is how the flag looks. Your concern is not your pain.”
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Willingham has done hundreds of funerals. He’s so comfortable holding and folding the flag, he demonstrates that prowess by getting it in a triangle while blindfolded. He keeps pushing the unit harder and harder. The insults can often draw smiles from other trainers watching — though the guardsman on the receiving end doesn’t crack.
“It’s hard to keep a straight face sometimes,” Sylvester said. “He picks on me, I know. I expect it.”
Sylvester was in Afghanistan for six months last year as a military cop. He’s also a new father with a 15-month-old son named Liam (“I’m Brenden with no Irish heritage, so I figured we’d keep up the tradition”) and he admitted the honor guard has been a challenge so far.
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• Photos: Honor Guard trainees prepare to honor veterans
Along with Sgt. Anahi Ledezma, he’d heard rumors they might be getting to do their first funeral the week before Memorial Day.
But Willingham, as he gets them ready to go to lift weights in they gym, isn’t so sure.
“We have to perfect all of it,” he said. “If they don’t perfect it, they’re not going on.”
Sick but ready to go
Heading into the weekend, Sylvester is hammered by the flu. Ledezma picks it up, too, and both aren’t sure if they’ll get to do their first funeral the week before Memorial Day. Trujillo escaped the bug.
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Trujillo’s problem has been getting his ceremonial uniform together. The shoes he got issued were too big. He still needed the white gloves, too.
But he felt ready to do his first one. The weeks of exacting inches. Lifting weights, running on the treadmill and reciting honor creeds has gotten him into a zone of sorts. He easily passed a written test that focuses on the minutia of uniform precision.
At home, he stands in his house and practices with a dummy rifle while his 3-year-old daughter watches.
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“She thinks it’s hilarious,” he said.
On Monday, the rumors bear out.
Trujillo learns he and Ledezma will preside over their first funeral at Riverside National Cemetery. He will fold the flag with Staff Sgt. Zakia Webster. Ledezma, still weakened from the flu, will be on bugle duty off to the side. She doesn’t know how to play taps, but Willingham said very few do. That’s why each bugle is equipped with a music box in the horn that plays the iconic tribute.
He said a family can request taps be played live, but if no request is made, they get the prerecorded version.
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A few times during training Monday, Ledezma felt her knees getting weak as she stood stiff and practiced rifle movements. When the uniforms were ready, she carried her water with her and began polishing the sides of her shoes and removing tiny pieces of lint from her jacket.
Trujillo measured with a ruler the place where the ribbons and pins were to go. A back brace was cinched around him — which made the uniform look more trim while protecting the back from lifting heavy caskets.
The room looked like a cross between a military clothing store and the costume department of a movie set. Safety pins and scissors were passed around for adjustments. A cigarette lighter burned off frayed threads. Black polish lined the edges of the shoes.
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Willingham had trained them to think of everything. To check out the kind of casket beforehand (“Oak ones are really heavy”) and if it has handles. He asked them what they should do if they got sick during a service. How to handle a swarm of bees (short answer; don’t move) and if a guardsman will be folding the flag and taking steps on sand or uneven ground. Find out who is talking and for how long and to get ready to stand at attention during the speeches. Stare at the middle of the flag to avoid getting dizzy.
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The final afternoon briefing before Ledezma and Trujillo do their first funeral, Master Sgt. Harold Padua let the room know the news.
“You ready?” he asked them.
“Yes sir,” Trujillo said.
“Yes sir,” Ledezma said.
“Don’t get nervous,” Padua said.
The honor guard veteran said everyone remembers their first funeral. His was in Lancaster in 2007. He was the middle person carrying the casket. He was nervous.
“My heart was racing,” he said. “Everyone is watching you and you just don’t want to mess up. I did OK.”
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Trujillo picked up his gloves.
He planned to wash them and dry them so they’d shrink after trying them on and seeing they were too long in the fingers. He planned to go over his role in his head and try to get a good night’s sleep. He’d think of Grandpa then because Tuesday belonged to someone else — someone he’d never heard of or met.
But someone who, after the service, he’d be linked with forever.
The Blue Eagles Total Force Honor Guard
History
Edwards Air Force Base formed Blue Eagles Honor Guard in 1974. Named for the F-15 fighter plane.
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Moved operation center to March Air Reserve Base in 1999
Territory covers 50,000 square Miles, seven counties, including Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange
Total Number of funerals since 2001: 22,943
Highest funeral total since 2001: 1,946 in 2013
Lowest funeral total since 2001: 1,112 in 2002
Total funerals in 2014: 1,859
Average Number of funerals per week: 37
Breakdown of Honors
Active duty killed: 20 honor guard members at service
Retired military, 20 or more years of service: 5-7 honor guard members at service
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Veteran less than 20 years: 2-3 honor guard members
Source: Blue Eagles Total Force Honor Guard