I was chosen because at the time, in my careless youth, I cut a fine figure in a well-pressed uniform. I managed to ditch the pallbearer duties quickly, moved on to flag presentations, and finished up in the 21 gun salute brigade (I liked that best, particularly because we didn't have to clean our own weapons--we just handed them off to some schmuck at the armory...the only downside is that you needed lots and lots of white gloves--they got very dirty, quickly). We were a VERY cohesive group and we took our duties very seriously, even though we only did the job one day a week (the rest of the week we did our regular jobs). On a typical day we'd do six to ten funerals. That's a lot of sobbing relatives to confront.
That said, there were times when we'd engage in generic snarking about how short life was or other "funeral-related" topics. This wasn't done to "mock" anyone, it was a way of processing the grief before us.
The bugler in our group was a very sensitive fellow -- he was also a full-on drunkard (this was many years ago, he wouldn't have lasted a minute in the more modern military) who would have a few beers for breakfast. Nonetheless, his taps never failed to bring a tear. Nowadays, owing to the shortage of buglers, they use a fake bugle that has a pre-recorded taps that is accessed by pushing a button.
The methods are more modern, the uniforms are wash-n-wear, but the emotional response, I'm betting, is not all that different from 'back in the day.' It's tough for young kids to be burying people--strangers, usually, with a shared element, that of military service--day in, day out, and seeing the devastation on the faces of the family members left behind. They're gonna need to find a way to bond and to shake off that distress that accrues. They just need to not take pictures and post 'em on social media--it's not the kind of thing you can share with the world and expect them to understand....as this situation clearly shows!
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