An Army bugler’s story about his special wartime assignment

John Yang:

And now on this day before Memorial Day, a piece from StoryCorps. In the final days of World War II, U.S. Army Sergeant Harrison Wright was stationed in a small Belgian village near the German border. He tells his grandson Sean Guess about a special assignment.

Man:

I was 19-year-old boy and a blue bugle in a outfit. If a young man is killed in action, or dies defending his country, you blow caps over his grave. And it just — there's no way to describe it. The emotion that you feel knowing that there was notice going out.

And I remember that war was over just a few days and they asked me to blow taps for all who died in the war. We climbed this high heel, it was like a mountain top and my battalion to bottom now blew blue those taps. And when I did, the man said it floated out across all it barely and said it was beautiful. They were all telling me how good it sounded and what a tribute it was to our fallen comrades.

John Yang:

Harrison Wright died in 2015 at the age of 91. For more stories like his, go to storycorps.org.