CEDARBURG, Wis. — Fifty years ago, President Harry Truman passed away and was laid to rest, and a Milwaukee area service member received an urgent call to carry the casket at his funeral in Missouri.
At the time, Lyle Gray was a young sergeant in the U.S. Army Honor Guard. He was a newlywed and heading home for Christmas while the 33rd president of the United States was gravely ill.
"The week before Christmas, they handed me a letter and said 'Give this letter to the airlines' should you have to be on-call and travel to St. Louis," recalled Gray.
President Truman died on Dec. 26, 1972, and was to be buried in the coming days, which meant Gray had to head to Mitchell International Airport right away.
"I handed the letter to the gate agent," remembered Gray. "There were no seats available because the day after Christmas is pretty busy and at first, he said 'We have no seats' and then he opened the letter and said, 'Okay you've got seat 13' or whatever it was."
Five decades later, Gray has vivid memories, including a detail that was almost overlooked, how the casket and the team carrying it would enter the Truman Library.
"I looked at it and said, 'We're not gonna get (through) this front door' and about 10 officers' heads swiveled at the same time and said, 'What?!'"
On the day of the state funeral, the casket and the eight service members carrying it, moved toward the Truman Library and eventually fit inside as a large crowd — including President Nixon — watched. Lyle says they had to improvise a way to fit through the doorway and make it look like they knew what they were doing. The result, he said, was something that looked fairly ceremonial and it worked because no one questioned it afterward.
"You know that history is in the making, you see a lot of famous people that are there, and because of that, you want to do your best and execute and make the services proud. Because you're the ceremonial units of the folks that protect this country," remembered Gray who says even at the age of 20, the gravity of the moment was not lost on him. "You want to make them proud."
He recalled seeing LBJ in attendance. Just a mere month later, Lyle would again put on his dress blues to escort President Johnson's casket at another state funeral, this time in Washington D.C.
