Ceremonial guardsmen ‘honor with dignity’

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Andrew D. Sarver
  • 99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. --  The mission of the Nellis Honor Guard is to represent the Air Force in a variety of ceremonial functions in Southern Nevada, California, Arizona and Utah. They are responsible for rendering military honors for funeral services and various Air Force ceremonies as well as provide their services at various opening ceremonies.

For the guardsmen, excellence is the only way “to honor with dignity;” every day they are fine-tuning their skills, or tweaking the slightest hesitation or shift until they can no longer get it wrong.

Devotion to Duty

Under the hot desert sun, a group of Airmen stand motionless. In two rows of three, they’re positioned opposite of each other, where the only sound is coming from a gentle wind passing through the formation. Between them rests an unfurled American flag draped over a spotless white casket.

Without so much as a whisper, they simultaneously grip the flag and, with each motion as precise as the next, they begin folding it. As the flag reaches the final fold, the last Airman bearing the folded flag breaks the silence.

“Again,” he says.

He hands the flag back to the formation for the Airmen to unfold and repeat the movements. The Airmen didn’t make a mistake, but in their line of work, they don’t practice until they get it right; they practice until they can’t get it wrong.

Before any guardsman is put on a detail, they have nearly a month of training to learn the basic movements. Afterwards, they continue to meticulously work out the slightest imperfections.

“Most of us will have put in about 80 hours of training in the weeks prior to a detail because we have to be perfect – we can’t afford to mess up,” said Airman 1st Class David Diez, Nellis honor guardsman. “Every funeral we do should be as perfect as we would want our funerals to be.”

Grit for Greatness

In the distance, the repeated percussion of hands smacking against wood and metal escapes the open doors of the Honor Guard practice room. Inside, three Airmen stand shoulder-to-shoulder, staring into a mirror to analyze their every movement.

“Present arms!” commands Senior Airman Philip Spegal, Nellis honor guardsman.

The Airmen lift their rifles with both hands then remove one hand, hit it against the stock and hold the rifles vertically in front of them.

“Port arms!” commands Spegal.

Again, they hit their rifles then position them diagonally across their chests. After taking a brief moment to pause and discuss what needs to be fixed, the Airmen pick up their rifles and start again.

“Honor Guard is pure teamwork,” said Tech. Sgt. Leon Spence, Nellis Honor Guard NCO in charge. “You can’t go to a funeral or a colors presentation and do everything by yourself. You have to be confident in your abilities and confident in your fellow guardsmen’s abilities to execute each detail as precise as possible.”

Passion for Perfection

Down a hallway, the soft brushing of lint rollers against freshly pressed uniforms competes with the sound of gentle laughter from a poorly delivered dad joke.

In a room, Staff Sgt. Victoria Schooley and Airman 1st Class Ashley Libbey, Nellis honor guardsmen, sit eye-level with their uniforms. With a ruler in one hand and a butterfly clutch in the other, Libby is aligning her ribbons. Across the room, Schooley is running her fingers up and down every seam of her ceremonial dress uniform, combing for loose strings to cut away with nail clippers or melt down with a lighter.

For them, looking sharp is just as important to having a successful detail as performing the actual maneuvers.

“I joined because I wanted to do a lot more than my regular day-to-day job – I wanted to feel like I had a bigger purpose in the Air Force and a bigger picture of our impact as a whole,” said Diez. “It will teach you to pay attention to detail, when you realize something as little as a crease in the uniform or a slight hesitation in a facing movement can be the difference between precision and failure.”

“We’re here to serve our community and I want to challenge people to come by and tell us what we could do better or to just learn about us and see what it is we do,” echoed Spence.