Volunteers ensure live taps for veterans at funerals nationwide

For many families, the last honor a veteran receives is not guaranteed by the military but carried by a volunteer with a bugle. Taps For Veterans says its mission is to connect those musicians with families and organizations across America and provide live Taps at no cost, filling a gap left because the military cannot supply live buglers for every funeral and ceremony.

At the center of the effort is Jari Villanueva, who spent 23 years in the United States Air Force Band and performed funeral honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Taps-related sites identify him as the director and co-founder of Taps For Veterans, part of a broader network built to make sure the 24-note call is heard live when service members are laid to rest. The organization says the music is meant to carry gratitude, service and love of country into those moments of farewell.

The need has helped turn remembrance into a national volunteer effort. Villanueva also started Taps Across America in 2015, and the Memorial Day project went nationwide in 2020 after CBS News featured it during the pandemic. CBS reported that tens of thousands of musicians took part that year, with horn players and other soloists joining in unison across the country and around the world. The goal, CBS said, was for Taps to be played at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day, the National Moment of Remembrance, and the tribute has since been embraced in all 50 states.

The network of live-Taps providers reaches beyond one holiday. Bugles Across America says it provides free military funeral honors with live Taps in all 50 states, underscoring how volunteer capacity now helps sustain a military tradition that families still expect. Taps For Veterans has also tied its work to commemorative moments such as the 150th anniversary of Taps in 2012 and the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s funeral in 2013, linking funeral honors to a wider civic duty.

That wider duty is the story behind the call itself. Taps is more than a memorial-day ritual; it is a promise made at gravesides, in cemeteries and at ceremonies across the country. Volunteer buglers have become the people who keep that promise when institutions cannot do it alone, turning a simple melody into one of the most durable acts of public gratitude available to American veterans.