The Space Force welcomed its first group of homegrown Guardians to complete Honor Guard training at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Washington, D.C. earlier this month.
Prior to Aug. 16, the Space Force Honor Guard was made up of prior Airmen who had transferred to the Space Force. But the graduation last week included six Guardians, five men and one woman, who came to Anacostia-Bolling right after completing basic military training.
“This is a special day for the Air Force and Space Force, Air Force Col. Ryan A.F. Crowley, commander of JBAB and the 11th Wing, said in an Aug. 21 press release. “These ceremonial guardsmen represent what all our Airmen and Guardians are doing all around the world, past, present and future.”
Honor Guards are the premier ceremonial units representing military branches at funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery and at public events elsewhere. The Space Force Honor Guard is a separate flight within the Air Force Honor Guard command, which has more than 200 guardsmen and support workers assigned to it.
Honor Guardsmen bear caskets of deceased service members and their dependents to Arlington, present flags at events, fire volleys at funeral services, and perform rifle drill routines. The Air Force Honor Guard even has its own barber shop available for ceremonial guardsmen six days a week to maintain a constant professional image, according to the unit’s website.
Training to become an Honor Guard takes nine weeks: the six Guardians that graduated along with 12 Airmen started June 17 and were recruited straight out of basic training, putting their original career plans on hold to volunteer for the job, explained Senior Master Sgt. Matthew P. Massoth, senior enlisted leader of the Space Force Honor Guard
“They were planning to become a cyber Guardian, a space or intel specialist Guardian,” he said in the press release. “Six of them volunteered to put a pause on that and come out to the Honor Guard for two years.”
Being the first in history was part of the appeal for some of them. Besides marking the first group of Guardians to complete the course, last week’s graduation was also the first Air Force Honor Guard training class to combine two military branches, according to the press release.
Today there are only slight uniform differences between the Air Force and Space Force: for example, Air Force ceremonial guardsmen wear a winged star—called a Hap Arnold device—on their uniform, while Space Force ceremonial guardsmen wear a Delta symbol. There will be more differences as the Space Force rolls out its service dress uniform, but for the most part the training is the same, explained Space Force Sgt. Sergkei Triantafyllidis, a technical instructor with the Air Force Honor Guard.
“Our primary mission is the same, and that is to perform funerals at Arlington National Cemetery, so in this regard the course is exactly the same,” he said.
That training, which emphasizes attention to detail and time management, should serve the graduates well throughout their careers after their 12-24 month stint in the Honor Guard is up, Massoth pointed out.
“They will take all of those skills along with their maturity acquired over their two years in the military and, we predict, that they when they get to their tech schools it will be much easier because they have already adapted to the military way of life,” he said.
The graduation came about a year after the Space Force first stood up its Ceremonial Honor Guard program when its first 16 members transferred to the service. Now the program stands at 33 members, with another 10 Guardians expected to start technical Honor Guard training this month, Massoth said.
