{"id":80695,"date":"2024-01-04T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=80695"},"modified":"2024-01-07T12:17:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-07T12:17:03","slug":"virginia-nc-guard-soldiers-learn-funeral-honor-fundamentals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=80695","title":{"rendered":"Virginia, NC Guard Soldiers Learn Funeral Honor Fundamentals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Spc. Gabriel Joines, left, a Virginia National Guard Soldier assigned to the 1033rd Engineer Company, 276th Engineer Battalion, 329th Regional Support Group, and Sgt. Brooke Hulings, right, a North Carolina National Guard Soldier assigned to the 882nd Engineer Company, 105th Engineer Battalion, 130th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, train on conducting funeral honors for military veterans Dec. 13, 2023, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The five-day course introduced Soldiers to the finer points of rendering honors to military veterans and prepared them to conduct professional military funeral honors in accordance with service tradition.
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VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Army National Guard Soldiers from Virginia and North Carolina learned the finer points of rendering honors to military veterans during Level 1 funeral honors training Dec. 11-15 at the State Military Reservation.<\/p>\n

Hosted by the Virginia National Guard Funeral Honors Program, the five-day course prepares Soldiers to conduct professional military funeral honors by service tradition. Four Virginia National Guard Soldiers and two North Carolina National Guard Soldiers were led by five trainers, two from Virginia and two from North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe training is a challenge both physically and mentally,\u201d said Spc. Gabriel Joines, a Virginia Guard Soldier assigned to the 1033rd Engineer Company, 276th Engineer Battalion, 329th Regional Support Group. \u201cPhysically you\u2019re not used to using a lot of these muscle groups. And the mental part is tough because you\u2019re trying to get it right every single time. You need to be perfect for that family because they are in a lot of pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joines knows because he\u2019s been on the other side, having seen a funeral honors team perform at a funeral for a family member.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really impressed by them and I thought it was something honorable to do and would be good for my future,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Sgt. Brooke Hullings of Greensboro, North Carolina, hasn\u2019t been on the other side of a service but realized the importance of the mission.<\/p>\n

A North Carolina National Guard Soldier assigned to the 882nd Engineer Company, 105th Engineer Battalion, 130th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, Hullings received a message from her twin sister, who is also in the North Carolina Guard, who saw a flyer about the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something a lot of people can\u2019t do but I think I can totally do and they need the help,\u201d she said she thought to herself. \u201cThat was in March. I started full time with the program in June.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hullings has already been performing ceremonies but the Level 1 training was important because it provided her with training for services she often doesn\u2019t get to perform, such as rendering full honors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my region, we don\u2019t do full honors because we don\u2019t always have the personnel,\u201d she explained. \u201cSo learning more about performing full honors has been huge for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hardest part of training and performing ceremonies is to not get into your own head, she explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going over every single motion and then you\u2019re getting frustrated,\u201d Hullings said. \u201cThe muscles and the strain on them, trying to hold everything the proper way. You have to keep that constant posture the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason the Soldiers need to keep their posture for the families.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the key is to keep your composure so you don\u2019t take away from what they\u2019re experiencing,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you perform flawlessly and without any mistakes, they\u2019re going to see it as a beautiful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Begun in January 2007, the Virginia National Guard Military Honors Program comprises four teams throughout the state that provide funeral details for National Guard Soldiers and veterans of the active Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard.<\/p>\n

They have performed more than 26,000 funeral services throughout the commonwealth and average 200 services each month.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Level 1 training course, Virginia also annually hosts the Level 2 National Training Course and the Level 3 National Recertification Course with Army National Guard Soldiers from around the country.<\/p>\n

For more National Guard news<\/a><\/p>\n

National Guard Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

National Guard X (Twitter<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spc. Gabriel Joines, left, a Virginia National Guard Soldier assigned to the 1033rd Engineer Company, 276th Engineer Battalion, 329th Regional Support Group, and Sgt. Brooke Hulings, right, a North Carolina National Guard Soldier assigned to the 882nd Engineer Company, 105th Engineer Battalion, 130th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, train on conducting funeral honors for military veterans Dec. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80697,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80695"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80698,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80695\/revisions\/80698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/80697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}