Foundation of perfection: Week 1
“I will not tuck my thumbs!”
Nine voices yell out the phrase in unison over and over after instructors spotted potential Honor Guard Airmen tucking their thumbs into their fists while standing at attention in formation.
Moments like this are common during the first week of Honor Guard training, a four-week, 200-hour course that turns Airmen into ceremonial guardsmen. The first week is a reintroduction to ceremonial actions like facing movements and military bearing.
Most of the trainees haven’t participated in those activities since basic military training or technical school. It’s also a chance for instructors to break bad habits trainees bring with them such as thumb-tucking as they begin to rebuild them into model Airmen.
The most common habit to be unlearned Honor Guard instructors call Air Force feet. It’s the toes apart and heels together stance every Airman uses while standing at attention. It’s one of the earliest lessons imparted by military training instructors at BMT.
“We’re breaking habits that were never purposely formed. It’s an unconscious response instilled in Basic, when Airmen are called to attention,” said Senior Airman Samuel Smith, 96th Weather Squadron and lead instructor for Class 25B. “Because it’s become an instinctive movement, it’s a very hard habit to break.”
Trainees must unlearn this behavior and replace it with a toes and heels together stance used by ceremonial guardsmen. This is accomplished by putting the Airmen in a high-stress, high intensity environment and loudly correcting them until the proper form is used, similar to BMT methods.
“We train with intensity, so the Airmen can handle anything they may see in the field,” said Master Sgt. Robert Joyce, Eglin Honor Guard superintendent. “We want our training to be more pressure-filled and stressful than a field environment, so the guardsmen are more prepared for the experience of being in those physically and emotionally taxing situations."
Attention to detail is critical during the course because the Airmen’s look, movements and bearing are on full display for vulnerable loved ones of a lost military member or for someone’s important ceremony, like a retirement or change of command.
"The attention to detail cannot be minimized. It cannot be forgotten,” Smith said to the trainees after a uniform inspection. "I expect perfection, and I will get it, or you will not graduate from this course.”
That perfection is strived for during the first week by repeated facing movements, handling a ceremonial rifle and memorizing the Honor Guard Charge, one of only eight official charges in the Air Force. The 150-word creed explains the honor guard mission. Trainees must memorize it, then recite it loud and proud. If they don’t sound off loud enough, instructors interrupt and try to break the Airman’s concentration. The goal for the Airmen is to tune out those distractions, focus on the words and deliver the creed with authority.
Smith described the training course as a house and Week 1 as the foundation the rest of the training phases to come are built upon.
The second week incorporates two-person flag folding and ceremonial movements while carrying a casket into what they’ve already learned.
Honorable and faithful service: Week 2
“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.
Shark fins and table tops: Week 3
On Day 13 of Eglin’s Honor Guard training class, trainees practiced a standard seven-person funeral process when a shark fin appeared.
An instructor spotted the fin when a trainee flared out a thumb during a firing party movement. The thumb up and pointed outward, instead of aligned along the forefinger is known as a shark fin by Honor Guard members.
The sighting visibly agitated the instructors, because, according to them, simple mistakes shouldn’t appear as often in the middle of Week 3 with seven days left in the course. Class 25B’s trainees passed this firing party evaluation at the end of Week 1. The firing party sequence began again, and the fin appeared again, and again.
This continued mistake, along with others, focused all the instructors’ attention on the firing party, who made up four of the seven roles in the funeral sequence. The ceremony started over with two Airmen raising the American flag above the casket while keeping it flat and pulled tight at eye level. This opening section of the funeral sequence is known as tabletop.
After the flag went up, the firing party order began with more errors and instructors yelled to begin that portion again. The errors continued prompting numerous restarts.
“If you hope to be ceremonial guardsmen, you have to get this right,” said Senior Airman Samuel Smith, Class 25B lead instructor, to the trainees.
The flag-holders, Senior Airman Jhade Bell, 33rd Fighter Wing, and Staff Sgt. Ryan Ranalli, 16th Electronic Warfare Squadron, kept the flag at eye level, above the casket through each restart, Taps and the firing party’s three-round rifle volley. The sequence typically takes approximately a minute and 20 seconds to complete. Trainees learn that at no time during this military honors sequence should the flag touch the casket.
With the restarts, the sequence extended more than five minutes. Sweat beaded and dripped down Bell and Ranalli’s faces. Their arms wobbled, but the flag didn’t move. Both Airmen’s faces showed signs of the mental struggle to control the physical, so the flag remained still. The flag never dipped, and the sequence finally finished.
“I just kept saying to myself, I cannot let this flag drop,” said Bell, recalling the experience later. “I had to push past all of the physical pain and tap into another level of discipline deep inside.”
Instructors praised Bell and Ranalli for their effort and bearing and shared their frustration with Class 25B. A few trainees had to retake their firing party procedure evaluations again due to the mistakes.
“If one person makes a mistake, the entire team feels it,” said Master Sgt. Robert Joyce, Eglin Honor Guard’s superintendent. “This is the time and place for mistakes. You can make 1,000 mistakes in this training room, so you don’t make one at a ceremony.”
To highlight Bell and Ranalli efforts during the repeated firing party sequence, the rest of Class 25B performed that table-top exercise. Groups of two held the flag at eye-level, while instructors ensured they maintained bearing and flag control as arms shook and flags dipped toward the floor. Instructors loudly encouraged the trainees to find the will to control their bodies.
“This is painful. It hurts. We know it hurts,” said Smith. “It is nothing compared to the pain that family feels sitting just a few feet from where you’re holding that flag.”
Thinking about Day 13, a few weeks after, Smith said he thought he was failing Class 25B as a trainer. The regression on that day was disheartening and he said he could not understand where he’d gone wrong.
Many, but not all the trainees fought through and kept the flag up. The struggling class was finally released for a much-needed break.
“We all get overwhelmed and frustrated,” said Senior Airman Ryne Montgomery, a Class 25B trainer. “We try to let the trainees cool off and work out issues as a team. A bad day is a perfect opportunity to come together, bond and talk about what went wrong, how to fix it, learn from it and ultimately improve.”
Montgomery added real improvement happens once the team takes accountability for the mistakes.
“The instructors can continue to call out those mistakes, but direct feedback from teammates sometimes gives an Airman the motivation to work harder,” said Montgomery, who volunteered for a second Honor Guard tour and plans to apply for the Air Force Honor Guard.
In the aftermath, the trainees sat in silence. Joyce sat down with them and read thank you cards and appreciation letters describing how Eglin’s Honor Guard had a positive impact on families at their lowest point.
“They do not see you. They see their loved ones in you,” said Joyce. “You will represent something so much larger than yourself. That is why we make this so difficult and push you so hard. So that when the time comes, you can be perfect and the epitome of professionalism.”
The instructors and trainees believed Day 13 changed the class and improved them all for it. After the wave of emotion subsided from the trainees, they were able to finally see how each role within the team affects the others and how a simple mistake can domino everyone else in the detail.
“Day 13, we reached the mountaintop,” Smith said. “It was as emotional and stressful as the training was ever going to be and they came through it. There best day of training was the day after Day 13.”
Week 4 is the culmination of all the training. The Airmen begin training for graduation, which incorporates everything they’ve learned into an active-duty full honors funeral. The team also gets their new uniforms.
Clickers and cadence blues: Week 4
After securing a ceremonial cap’s chrome wing and star insignia, Senior Airman Natalie Garcia, 96th Medical Group, placed the hat on her head to check the fit. She nodded her head to see if the hat moved with the motion. When she raised her head back up, Garcia leaned back in her chair and smiled brightly.
The locked-tight pressure valve of the Honor Guard’s training course, sealed up since April 1, loosened up in Week 4 for Class 25B with graduation on the horizon. Stern faces, downward looks and command voices gave way to conversations and a few more smiles.
The week was marked by repeated graduation practices, featuring a full active-duty honors funeral, punctuated with high points of receiving and preparing new ceremonial guardsman uniforms and hats. Another moment of levity was when the Airmen added metal side plates, known as cheaters, to their dress uniform shoes that adds clicking sounds to their steps and when they bring their heels together.
The smiles and end-in-sight mentality led to a few literal missteps during early graduation run-throughs forcing, class leader, Staff Sgt. Ryan Ranalli, 16th Electronic Warfare Squadron, to call cadence for a short time when the trainees marched together.
“It’s natural for the trainees to relax a bit,” said Airman 1st Class Taylor Mahan, one of Class 25B’s five instructors. “But when they stop meeting our performance expectations, we will respond the same way we have throughout each week of their training month. They will know they aren’t reaching our standard and we’ll refocus them back to the goal of a flawless performance.
The missteps ironed themselves out on Day 19, when the team donned their ceremonial uniforms for the first time for an official formation. Something magical happened when those clicking shiny black shoes, the deep blue of the uniforms and the ceremonial cap came together, removing the individual identity and to focus the team. When Class 25B formed up for an open-ranks inspection of their new uniforms, progress was apparent.
At the end of the inspection, the last step before graduation day, Master Sgt. Robert Joyce, Eglin Honor Guard superintendent, spoke to the class once again about reaching for and achieving perfection. He urged them to strive for that goal the following day.
For Senior Airman Samuel Smith, Class 25B’s head trainer, they got incredibly close.
“They performed above expectations and left me feeling so proud of them and the work the training team put into them,” said Smith, whose Honor Guard tour ended the week after with Class 25B’s graduation. “They came in as individuals and left graduation as a team. They earned the title of Guardsman.”
Colors and carry: graduation and beyond
Senior Airman Gage Gardner’s first day of Honor Guard training began with a bang!
The Airman, unaccustomed to a Crestview morning commute due to 96th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron shift work, misjudged a stop on his way to training and his 20-year-old Suburban bumped a car in front of him at the worst possible time for an accident.
“I remember thinking there’s no way this is about to happen, as it was happening,” said the 23-year-old, who knew every second of that specific morning was critical. “(At orientation) the instructors stressed up front not to be late, and here I was, the class leader, about to be late on day one.”
The unique circumstances of Gardner’s tardiness granted him a little bit of forgiveness by his instructors and team. With all accounted for, Eglin’s 200-hour Honor Guard training course officially began April Fool’s Day 2025.
The course’s lead instructor, Senior Airman Samuel Smith, said he watched how Class 25B’s individual Airmen grew into a team, particularly after Day 13. Smith said although the class struggled to form, they pulled off a nearly flawless full-honors funeral performance at their graduation in front of base leadership, friends and family April 25.
“It was one of the best honor guard graduations I’ve seen, even better than my own,” said Smith. “They came along way and showed their best at the exact right moment.”
After the funeral performance, Class 25B received their round ceremonial guardsman badge, known as a Cookie. Then the Airmen stood side-by-side in front of the crowd and recited the 150-word Honor Guard charge, something they practiced repeatedly in the lead up to graduation.
“That charge was with one voice,” said Smith. “It was a really proud moment for me as their trainer.”
At the event’s end, the graduates stood at attention until someone tapped them on the shoulder for congratulations. Although his primary focus was the graduation performance, Gardner said he wondered deep-down if he would have anyone in attendance that would tap him out.
Gardner waited for what he said felt like forever as teammates were tapped out with hugs and handshakes. Finally, he saw a familiar smile from his close friend from the 96th AMXS, Staff Sgt. Vincent Franklin, to congratulate him.
Gardner, who was almost robotic with his unwavering military bearing, said he came as close as he ever had to breaking up in that moment before he was finally tapped out.
“It was a kind of crescendo moment of emotion that really got to me after all the hard work,” Gardner said.
A few days after the emotional graduation, Smith led his last Honor Guard detail, a funeral in Pensacola, with two of his trainees participating in the firing party.
Smith’s trainee, Tarvars Davis, 96th Operations Support Squadron, in the role known as Carry, presented three spent rifle volley rounds to the family.
Smith said the Carry role was one of the most difficult positions within a standard funeral team. Davis had that role in his first detail three days after training completion.
“When the pall-bearing NCO presents the flag, they have Congressionally mandated scripted words that must be said, but offering the rounds, the Carry must say something from the heart to that family member who’s looking directly at them,” said Smith.
Davis said he could feel the family member’s emotions as he approached. He said those few steps were a realization moment of why Class 25B trained so hard. He related that the mental toughness needed to be a ceremonial guardsman was critical in that moment.
Afterward, the 22-year-old Airman said he was elated from the experience as he left the cemetery.
“There’s nothing else in the military that can create that type of feeling of just pure pride,” said Davis, who added that in the moment he wanted to be a career ceremonial guardsman. “It was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had.”
Smith, watched that moment and witnessed his trainee truly become a ceremonial guardsman that day.
“Watching them execute on the highest level on that day, they were no longer my trainees, we were peers,” said Smith.
A week after their graduation, six of the 11 Class 25B Airmen detailed to honor the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Memorial ceremony with Taps and a rifle volley.