Inventive Navy veteran serves up proposal for 21-gun-salute device

KIDDER, Mo. -- An 83-year-old Navy veteran from northwest Missouri said he expects to patent a device that would provide a 21-gun salute to deceased military members.

Bill Crabb said he got the idea for his invention last Memorial Day, when American Legion leaders in Kidder, about 60 miles north of Kansas City, couldn't find enough volunteers to fire a salute to the veterans buried in the local cemetery.

"I said, 'There's got to be a way to have a firing squad here,'" Crabb told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a story published Monday. "They deserve it and they're going to get it."

While the number of veterans who are dying continues to rise, fewer volunteers are available to fire the ceremonial volleys or play taps for military honors.

The military turned to recorded music to solve the taps problem.

Crabb thinks the contraption he built out of metal scrap and carries in the back of his pickup could solve the other. Federal law requires the providing of military funeral honors for any eligible veteran if requested by family.

With so few buglers available, the military a few years ago began to rely on a recorded version of taps. A digital device inserted into a bugle plays a version of taps recorded at Arlington National Cemetery.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion or American Veterans traditionally have stepped forward to provide that service.

Thinning ranks

"We're running into problems," said Mike Schlee of the American Legion. "The younger guys are working, so it's hard for them to get off during the day. The World War II guys are getting a little bit too old. And, I think it's probably depressing as hell burying all their comrades."

Schlee said Missouri was among a handful of states with an outstanding program for veterans' funerals.

The Missouri National Guard has more than a dozen teams around the state that will provide military honors for any qualifying veteran, said Lt. Brent Adams, the program's operations coordinator.

Adams said if he had known about Crabb's problem last Memorial Day, he might have been able to help.

Adams said he wouldn't mind finding out more about Crabb's prototype, and that possibly it could be incorporated into the Guard's funeral honors program.

Crabb, a retired blacksmith and welder, doesn't want to disclose too much about his device. He is afraid someone might steal his idea before he can get it patented.

On the day a reporter visited him, he was out of the .30-caliber blanks his invention requires. He will tell you that it has no springs or working mechanisms that might fail. It requires only one operator. He likes to be downwind from the grave site when he fires it because the report is so loud.

"My ears are so bad, it doesn't bother me," he said.

He used it for the first time at a veteran's burial earlier this month, and said it worked perfectly.

He received a "thank you" note and $40 from the widow. He sent the money back.

"I didn't make this thing to make a profit off of people," he said.

As he described how the machine worked, he became emotional as he talked about veterans not getting the recognition he believes they deserve.

"It just hurts to see people treated like they are. It just ain't right," he said, his voice quivering. "Every veteran man or woman deserves the 21-gun salute, and they deserve a funeral by the people. They served their lives for the country.

"We fought our butts off," he said, his tone growing angry. "And they're going to do the same cussed thing right now with the people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wait until after they're all home and all settled and see what kind of treatment they get."