29-05-2025
Broadway part of 'Taps Across America'
The solemn sounds of a bugler playing Taps echoed through the Town of Broadway Monday afternoon.
Tyler Green, a student at Southern Lee High School, played the symbolic melody at the North Carolina Veterans Memorial precisely at 3 p.m. as part of a national program titled 'Taps Across America.'
The Private John Grady chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution hosted the program and provided a brief program beforehand.
'Taps Across America is a nationwide effort at 3 p.m. in each time zone on Memorial Day, musicians are encouraged to step mouton their porch, to go to the cemetery or a memorial and play Taps,' Carolyn Comfort of the Private John Grady D.A.R. chapter said.
During the ceremony, Stacy Nooning, also from the Private John Grady Chapter offered a Memorial Day prayer.
Comfort then shared a poem, 'Born on the Fourth of July,' about her brother Jack, who was killed in Vietnam on Jan. 2, 1968.
'Even though the poem is about Jack, I think it applies to many families across this country in all of our conflicts,' she said.
Comfort said her aunt wrote the poem about six years after Jack was killed in the Vietnam War. She said her family had shared the poem at other Memorial Day programs.
'I think it speaks to all of your fallen warriors,' she said.
Following the poem, Green raised his trumpet to his lips and played the mournful tune as veterans saluted.
'Taps' is a bugle call sounded to signal 'lights out' at the end of a military day and during patriotic memorial ceremonies and military funerals conducted by the United States Armed Forces.
Taps Across America is a nationwide tribute dedicated to honoring the service and sacrifice of our fallen military heroes. Founded in 2020 by retired Air Force bugler Jari Villanueva, Co-Founder of Taps for Veterans, this powerful tradition began as a way to bring Americans together during the pandemic. Instead of parades and public ceremonies, thousands of musicians—professional and amateur alike—took to their front porches and local landmarks to sound Taps in unison.
More than 10,000 musicians participated in the inaugural tribute, and the movement continues to grow. Members of the John Grady Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution hope to continue that tradition in Lee County as well.
