Photo By Samuel King Jr. | Airman 1st Class Natalia Mercado, 96th Medical Support Squadron, performs a two-person...... read more read more
Subscribe
“Please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one's honorable and faithful service.”
The Honor Guard training room stood quiet during Week 2’s two-person flag fold training until a trainee took a knee and whispered the message of condolence. Sometimes the student’s quiet voices would overlap with the popping sound of an American flag being pulled tight to begin the fold.
As Week 1 of Eglin’s Honor Guard training course focused on shaping the Airmen, Week 2 focuses on shaping their performance with ceremonial rifle, flag-folding and pallbearer drills and evaluations.
The Airmen repeat those techniques until they pass an evaluation on their performance. With each new procedure learned, they add another layer toward the goal of completing a standard honors funeral.
Early in Week 2, Class 25 Bravo stumbled on their road to that goal when a trainee exited their 11-person roster.
“A very small percentage of people join the military. An even smaller amount complete Honor Guard training,” said Senior Airman Samuel Smith, Class 25B’s lead trainer. “We need a certain type of person because this mission is so much greater than ourselves and not everyone is cut out for it.”
When an Airman chooses not to continue the training, their unit must send someone else to fill that position. The pressure is on the trainee to try and catch up with the rest of the class as quickly as possible.
Senior Airman Gage McCool, 33rd Fighter Wing, joined Class 25B on Day 6 with only 12 hours’ notice. In less than eight hours, he passed two of the Week 1 evaluations and completely caught up to his fellow trainees after five days.
“I was extremely nervous before having to report,” said the mustachioed 20-year-old Airman. “I feel like I caught on quick and now I’m just part of the team.”
Helping to catch up McCool and train the other 10 Airmen are three senior airmen and two airmen 1st class. Throughout almost every quarterly Honor Guard class, there are two-stripers in leadership positions training their replacements. Honor Guard duty is a seven-month assignment.
“It’s very untraditional the roles they are tasked to fulfill,” said Master Sgt. Robert Joyce, Eglin Honor Guard superintendent, about lower ranked trainers. “It is a big task we charge these Airmen with to pass that torch to the next group, so this mission can continue.”
Airman 1st Class Jacob Sanchez, 33rd FW, is one of those trainers. The soft-spoken Airman provides one-on-one and small group training for Class 25B, but when a command voice is called for, Sanchez steps up. When giving commands to action, his voice goes deep and loud booming through the training area.
Sanchez said there’s never been any stigma with his age or rank. He added that rank is virtually invisible within the Honor Guard team.
“Everyone is equal in the Honor Guard,” said the 20-year-old from Guam. “No one is in charge based on our rank, it is whoever is best to perform at a ceremony, funeral, or in the training room.”
Sanchez is an instructor only five months after graduating from the course in October 2024. A few Class 25B graduates will instruct Class 25 Delta this October.
The third week incorporates a standard honors funeral with seven ceremonial guardsmen and team flag-folding into what the team learned in the first two weeks.
| Date Taken: | 05.20.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.20.2025 11:01 |
| Story ID: | 498463 |
| Location: | EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: | 20 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Honorable, faithful service: Honor Guard training Week 2, by Samuel King Jr., identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
