DETAILS

HONOR GUARD

The Greenwood/New Whiteland Indiana Veteran’s Group is dedicated to providing meaningful military funeral honors for veterans in our community. The Honor Guard is composed entirely of military veterans who volunteer their time to support their fellow veterans and their families during times of need.

We conduct ceremonies that include folding and presenting the burial flag, a seven-rifle salute using M1 Garand rifles, and the playing of “live” taps near the end of funeral services. Frequently, we work alongside the funeral teams from the veteran’s branch of the military to ensure “Full Military Funeral Honors.” When collaborating with these teams, it is the military team that handles the folding and presentation of the burial flag.

Typically, the process begins when local funeral homes contact us after they have been entrusted with making arrangements for a veteran’s funeral. These funeral homes often work with both our Honor Guard and the associated military funeral honors team to coordinate the service. Occasionally, families of veterans approach us directly, especially if a funeral home is not involved, to plan and schedule military funeral honors.

Our services are primarily offered in the southern half of Marion County and all of Johnson County, but we are willing to extend our coverage to the entirety of Marion County for local funeral homes.

We are officially sanctioned by three Veteran’s Service Organizations: The Greenwood American Legion Post No. 252, the Greenwood Memorial VFW Post No. 5864, and the New Whiteland VFW Post No. 5879. These three posts combined their Honor/Color Guards in the mid-1990s to ensure that Funeral Honors would be available for all veterans in the area. Our group also holds approval from the Indiana Army National Guard.

In addition to funeral honors, our Honor Guard collects donations over the Memorial Day weekend at one of the local cemeteries to support Veterans in need of financial aid. During the Veteran’s Day period, we schedule visits to assisted living facilities in the area, where we honor resident veterans. At these facilities, we typically present a rifle salute, followed by meeting, greeting, and personally thanking each veteran.

COLOR GUARD

While our primary responsibility is the Honor Guard for funerals, our Veteran’s Group also serves as a Color Guard within the same general region. The Color Guard posts and presents Colors, sometimes including Service Flags, at local schools and veteran-focused events. We provide Flag Etiquette presentations at elementary schools and have the honor of leading the annual Greenwood Freedom Festival Parade each year in late June.

MEMBER EXPERIENCE

After learning about our activities, you might imagine that we are busy every week. However, with a sufficient number of group members and by spreading events throughout the year, full participation is still manageable. Participation in our events is entirely voluntary for each member. Once event notifications are sent out, every member is free to decide whether they are available and interested in attending. With enough volunteers, we are generally able to fully staff every event.

Recently, our membership has declined as older members retire, so we are actively seeking interested veterans to join us. If you would like more information or have questions, please send your name, phone number, and email to Volunteer@GreenwoodHonorGuard.org. We look forward to chatting and sharing more about our group and how you can get involved.

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