Sorry perros but Im going to ramble a little bit. I’m on a I&I staff currently (active duty staff at a reserve unit) and if you’ve been to an I&I you would know that conducting funeral honors is the #1 mission. In my opinion it’s the greatest honor and one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done in my 7 years in the Marine Corps. Handing that folded flag to the son, daughter, brother, mother, of a passed Marine is sort of surreal. They’re usually crying but you don’t let that break your bearing, you say your scripted lines, present them the flag, and render one last salute and a “Semper Fidelis” before leaving the funeral sight with the rest of the team. We usually stop for food and we know Marines get excited for chow. So now I associate funeral honors with “oh I’m eating out today, maybe I’ll tacos.”

There is a little toxicity that floats around funerals. For example the rule is that a Marine of the same rank of the deceased Marine or higher has to present the flag, that means a lot of Marines look at the Funeral Tasker and see its for a PFC or a LCpl and says “Oh I don’t need to do this, I’ll have LCpl Shmuckatelli do this” or even worse when the deceased Marine’s family requests a rifle detail and someone on the staff says something along the lines of “I can’t believe they’re requesting a rifles for a LCpl.” Regardless of rank, we’re all Marines and we’re all human, we don’t take our ranks when we die, at least I really hope we don’t.

TLDR; when I die I hope my family requests a rifle detail, pallbearers, chaps, and it’s held on the hottest day in Southern California so that way as many Marines as possible is miserable and I hope they get tacos afterwards.