Gulf Coast Sound (Winter) Drum & Bugle Corps

March 20th, 2003

Gulf Coast Sound Executive Director Mike Palmquist has been recognized by the Houston Chronicle.

Way to go Pud.

Semper Fi!! Even though you aren't a Marine it still applies.

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March 17, 2003, 10:20AM

Bugler wants all veterans laid to rest on the right note

By ALLAN TURNER
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

Steve Campbell / Chronicle Mike Palmquist, a 57-year-old Army veteran, plays Taps at the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in north Houston.

America's greatest generation -- the men and women who served in World War II -- is dying, says Mike Palmquist. And all too often, the veterans are laid to rest with recorded music.

"No veteran should be buried without military honors or with recorded music unless there's absolutely no choice," Palmquist said. "I've got nothing against recorded music, but it's just not right." Palmquist, a 57-year-old Army vet, is trying to do something about it.

He's playing Taps.

Palmquist, a Minneapolis-area native who learned to play the cornet with members of his parents' American Legion band, is a member of the Hawthorne Caballeros Alumni Corps, a Hawthorne, N.J.-based drum-and-bugle corps. Until 2001, he was active in Houston's Bayou City Blues.

"Many years ago, I played Taps as part of a drum-and-bugle corps in Minnesota," he said. "We'd always perform on Memorial Day. ... But I hadn't done that in many years."

Several years ago, alarmed at the rate the old-timers were dying, Palmquist thought again about playing Taps -- but he didn't. "I procrastinated," he said. "It was only after 9/11 that I decided it was time to act. I went to the veterans cemetery and left my name."

Since then, he's brought his bugle to at least half a dozen funerals, sending off old soldiers with the haunting strains in the key of G.

"It's something I really want to do," Palmquist said. "And I want to make myself available."

Still, he noted, time is limited. In the spring and summer, he travels with the New Jersey bugle corps. And he holds a full-time job as a salesman of promotional materials to auto dealerships.

To ease the scheduling problem, Palmquist said he would like to organize a band of buglers to play Taps at Houston funerals. The group would be modeled after the national organization, Bugles Across America.

"I would be happy to do this," he said. "If other people who play would like to do this, they should get in touch and we'll start our own 'Bugles Across Houston.' "

Palmquist's e-mail address is: tapsmjp@aol.com.