Oorah! And welcome to the Funeral Operations School page of our website. In the sections below there is some great information about Funeral Operations. I encourage you to take some time and look at each section. It is my hope that you will join us for our next Honor Guard Clinic and Funeral Operations School. For the family, with hon
Oorah! And welcome to the Funeral Operations School page of our website. In the sections below there is some great information about Funeral Operations. I encourage you to take some time and look at each section. It is my hope that you will join us for our next Honor Guard Clinic and Funeral Operations School. For the family, with honor, respect, and compassion!
With respect,
Brent
Founder and Lead Instructor
The School
The Funeral Operations School more affectionately known as " The School" was organized in in 2017 and executed its inaugural class in 2018. This school is designed to provide specific high level operational training for all types of funerals that an emergency services honor guard could potentially encounter.
Like the Milwaukee based Honor Guard Clinic our instructors selected to teach this school have extensive operational backgrounds and are subject matter experts in the portions of the school that they are teaching.
The Funeral Operations School is a two (2) day intensive hybrid course consisting of comprehensive classroom, table-top, and off-site practical training.
Some of the topics that are covered in this two (2) day course are listed below.
- The differences in funeral types and what honors should be rendered for each. (Ie. Line of Duty - L.O.D.D., Active Duty, Retiree, and VIP.)
- Interface with clergy, funeral director, and cemetery staff.
- Staging of personnel, apparatus, and other critical assets during visitation, funeral service, and committal services at the cemetery.
- Route planning and interface with local law enforcement as it relates to the procession.
- Over all honor guard operations from time of initial notification, through visitation, service and committal and after care.
Fact and how it illustrates a need.
It's vitally important to understand why this training is critical to honor guards.
Sadly, in 2019 there were a total of 204 Line of Duty Death's in the United States. 147 of those were law enforcement and 57 were Fire/EMS. This is just one year of stats.
If we look back over the last 30 years, history is grievously full of incidents such as The Yarnell Hill Fire (19), West Fertilizer (10), Charleston Sofa (9), Worcester Cold Storage (6), and of course the most deadly day on American soil 9/11.
**The LODD numbers do not include those deaths determined to be active duty, retiree, or VIP.