FAIRHOPE, Ala. — A flag on a coffin. An honor guard firing a volley of shots. A bugler playing “Taps.” The flag, folded into a triangle, field of stars showing, and presented to the deceased service member’s family.

These are the last rites this nation can give someone who has honorably served in the armed forces.

Unfortunately, with so many members of the armed forces serving overseas and the number of older veterans passing away, it’s sometimes difficult to arrange that. Members of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5660 in Fairhope have stepped up to help.

“It all started last year, said Billy Garner, a member of the VFW post and a World War II veteran. “My wife (Ann) and I went to a funeral in Mobile and they had military honors for him. It really impressed me,” Garner said.

Learning there were few guards in Baldwin County, Garner mobilized. He presented the idea of forming an honor guard to the post membership, and about 12 men signed up.

Garner is used to getting things done. The third son of seven children, his mother, Martha, wrote to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asking if Garner could be spared military service, as he would be the last of her boys. The other two were in the Army and Marines.

“The answer came from Selective Service,” Garner said with a laugh. No, there was no provision to defer a person because other family members were serving. Or to finish high school, for that matter.

He entered the Navy at Great Lakes Naval Training Center in 1944. He was assigned to the USS Livermore, a destroyer named for a navy chaplain.

Another of the VFW honor guard, Thomas Langham of Fairhope, served in Korea aboard the USS Alfred C. Cunningham (DD 752), and later joined the Air Force, becoming a crew chief of a B-47 bomber.

He became a peace officer in Arizona before moving to back to Fairhope.

“My dad was a shipbuilder at Waterman’s Steamship,” said Langham. “My dad built the fireplace in the Grand Hotel.”

Langham said his father took a ship’s “stack” or smokestack from the salvage yard at the steamship company to create the fireplace.

Larry DiAmco, also of Fairhope, joined the Air Force in 1952 and retired in 1985, serving in Korea and Vietnam.

“I was in munitions,” chuckled DiAmco. “I blew things up and built things.”

The decision to help with the honor guard was an easy one for DiAmco.

“When a veteran gives service, he or she deserves a dignified service,” he said. “It leaves the family with a cherished moment.”

The unit uses the services of Bob “Gunny” Hempling as a bugler.

“Tommy plays harmonica,” said Garner, adding that Hempling used the instrument to play “Taps” a few times until the unit could find the funds to purchase a good bugle.

Langham serves as back-up bugler to the unit.

“I did this a lot in Arizona,” said Langham. “I was active with the VFW for a number of years. We buried a lot of old fellows who were my friends.”

Members of other veterans groups are welcome to join the unit, which meets about once a month.

“Elberta had a unit,” said Garner, explaining that time had worn down the unit, so the remaining members joined forces with the Fairhope post.

There is no charge for the veteran’s family to have the honor guard, Garner says.

“We get the call, we go,” he said, adding that most morticians know what paperwork is required. The family should have a copy of the veteran’s discharge papers, the DD-214.

The unit does accept donations, which should be sent to the post at Post Office Box 406, Fairhope, AL 36533, marked for the Honor Guard.

Something the honor guard needed were weapons to perform the final rifle volley.

“Billy does not blow his horn enough,” said DiAmco, explaining that the unit had asked the Army for the weapons. They had said yes, so the unit expected the rifles in short order.

Military people should know better. Seven months later, they had not arrived.

“Billy wrote (Congressman Jo) Bonner. Two weeks later we had the weapons,” DiAmco said.

Time is the one thing the military has not figured out how to fight, and DiAmco thinks the unit is going to be busy.

“We figure there will be 200 or so funerals in this area a year,” he said.