# ‘Gun Salutes‘



## army (23 Sep 2002)

Posted by *Juno847627709@aol.com* on *Thu, 22 Mar 2001 21:48:21 EST*
Alrighty.
    Got a question here for those of you ‘in the know‘ about this sort of 
thing.
        I was reading ‘Reader‘s Digest‘, clumsily leafing through in hopes of 
finding‘Humour in Uniform‘, it was a mission failed when I stumbled upon 
some info about gun salutes.
    There was a Mr MacFarlane working at a Military Heritage Museumor 
something in/around Ottawa, and he was asked, by Reader‘s Digest, the 
meaning of a gun salute.
    He said, in a nutshell, that to salute was to deliberately display 
defencelessness in the face of a respected superior. So, seeing as reloading 
weapons formerly was rather time-consuming process, all the men under a 
commander would fire off their rounds, leaving them completely defenceless to 
the passing Officer/Official, or whatever. From what I understand, if 
somebody‘important‘ was approaching a fortified building, the weapons from 
the castleor whatever would all fire off, once again leaving it defenceless 
to the incoming personel, as a sign of trust and respect.
    Now, ‘they‘, in Reader‘s Digest, say the people of certain appointments 
are given a certain number of ‘shots fired‘. The higher the appointment, the 
more shots, all the way up to 21 for Royalty, or so methinks.
    In no place in the article did it mention anything about gun salutes for 
fallen troops.
    I was under the impression that if a unit lost a member, they would 
provide a 21 gun salute, in honour of the dead comrade. Is that the 
commercialised, Americanised version of things, or what?
    If Pte Bloggins catches one, at his formal funeral do we not give a 21 
gun salute?
        Any enlightenment out there?
            Thanks,
                        -Matt
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## army (23 Sep 2002)

Posted by *"John Gow" <jgow@home.com>* on *Thu, 22 Mar 2001 23:14:49 -0500*
This being the one you shoud re-read...
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Gow" 
To: 
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 10:48 PM
Subject: Re: ‘Gun Salutes‘
> Yes, three rounds, together and it takes some practise! from a number of
> weapons...
>
> And it sounds empty...
>
> John
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: 
> To: 
> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 10:35 PM
> Subject: Re: ‘Gun Salutes‘
>
>
> > Thanks, John.
> >     I‘m sure I will.
> >     You said 3 rounds from the rifle of the day for the Average Joe.
> > Do you actually mean 1 rifle, or a number of them? Gotta use training
> wheels
> > for me I guess.
> >     Thanks again,
> >                     -Matt
> > --------------------------------------------------------
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>
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