No matter what someone has done in life, the sound of a bugle playing the easily recognized and haunting melody of taps at the cemetery says he or she was a veteran.
At the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, south of Joliet, this final honor for a veteran is performed almost every day–and sometimes repeatedly–by Ed Crobie.
Crobie, 55, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam, has performed taps well over 400 times since he began on Valentine’s Day 2001.
“I don’t think about the number,” Crobie said. “I keep track of it, but I never contemplate on it too much.”
Instead he focuses on his performance.
“Taps has to be played respectfully,” he said. “You have to think about what you are doing and what taps means to those who are going to hear it.”
The melancholy 24-note bugle call was composed during the Civil War by Union Gen. Daniel Butterfield. Butterfield later was awarded the medal of honor for heroism, but on July 2, 1862, in Virginia, he was unhappy with the Army’s existing bugle call for “lights out” at the end of the day.
Butterfield called on one of his unit’s buglers, Oliver Norton of Chicago, for help.
Unable to read or write music, Butterfield whistled the tune he had in mind, and that night Norton played it for the troops. The next day buglers from neighboring units requested the music, and soon taps was being played by both the Union and Confederate armies.
It was not long before taps was adopted for military funerals, a custom that began when a Union officer ordered that taps be played at a burial rather than risk misinterpretation of the traditional volleys of rifle fire by nearby enemy troops.
For well over a century taps has been the official bugle call to play at the burials of service personnel and veterans.
Crobie lives in Joliet with his wife Gail; they have two daughters and a son. He grew up in Lockport, beginning cornet at age 9 and playing in his junior high school at St. Dennis Elementary School in Lockport and at Joliet Catholic High School in Joliet. After high school he entered the Marine Corps. While in boot camp his music background landed him in a Marine Corps field music school.
“As it turned out it probably saved my life because in Vietnam I was in the drum and bugle corps,” Crobie said.
After his discharge he returned home and went to work for Commonwealth Edison, from which he is now retired.
About the time of his retirement he became aware that during burial services at the new Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, the sounding of taps came from a CD player.
After giving it a lot of thought, Crobie decided to offer his services as a bugler.
He had been an inactive member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Lockport, where his father also had been a member, and he transferred to the post in Joliet.
“Also, I got a VFW uniform because I felt I had to have a uniform to do this,” Crobie said.
Finally, in February of last year, he felt ready.
“I couldn’t wait to go down there,” Crobie said. “In fact, I couldn’t sleep for a couple of days because even though I wanted to go down there, I wasn’t sure I could do it emotionally, and I didn’t know if I would be able to play the way I wanted to play.”
Dressed in his uniform and carrying his bugle, Crobie traveled to the cemetery’s administrative building and explained what he wanted to do.
As it turned out, he linked up there with the head of an honor guard from the American Legion post in Manhattan.
“He said, `There’s a funeral on its way down here right now and you can play for them,'” Crobie said. “Then, as it turned out, two more funerals came and I did all three that day. I felt good about it and I’ve been down there ever since.”
“Ed is very quiet and he’s certainly not doing what he does for any glory, but he is out here almost every day ready to play at all of the services,” said Sandy Jones, an administrator at the cemetery.
Crobie finds his volunteer work fulfilling and the cemetery a dignified and appropriate resting place for veterans.
“I think it is a beautiful place,” Crobie said. “I love it there and plan on going there when my time comes.”
Although he expects no thanks, it is not unusual for relatives of the veteran who died to express their appreciation.
“The reaction varies,” Crobie said.
“Some people just come in and leave. Some go out of their way to thank everybody. Everyone’s different and everyone’s got their own thoughts at a time like that. Whether they thank me or not is no big deal at all.”
But the appreciation runs deeper than Crobie may expect.
“When Ed plays taps it is so very much more effective than hearing it from a recording,” Jones said.
“And it has a real impact on the family–you can tell it means a lot to them.”
