Local Air Force vet plays ‘Taps’ with thousands across country for Memorial Day

The most danger Douglas Lindt said he faced as an Air Force musician in the late 1960s “was breaking drumsticks and getting a splinter.”

“Someone needed to do it,” the Elk Grove Village man said of his stint in the Air Force Academy Band Squadron’s Drum and Bugle Corps Unit.

On Monday, Lindt used his musical skills to play the 24-note “Taps” on his trumpet along with thousands of others across the country participating in this year’s Taps Across America event.

“I have the greatest respect for Vietnam vets and all vets,” said 73-year-old Lindt, who is primarily a drummer. “I believe everyone in my generation knows someone who died in Vietnam.”

Taps Across America participants played the bugle call simultaneously in observance of The National Moment of Remembrance — the one minute pause many Americans take at 3 p.m. on Memorial Day to remember those who died while serving in the military.

The first Taps Across America was created last year during the coronavirus pandemic. Over 4,000 musicians registered to play “Taps” this year with trumpets, flutes, bugles and trombones, officials said.

Lindt, who also participated in the event last year, said he often thinks of those who died during the Vietnam War who could’ve “sat next to us in math class or history class in high school.”

“We lost touch, they went to ‘Nam and came home in a box,” he said.