Reveille And Retreat Research

For my observation project I chose the reveille and retreat. The whole concept of the reveille and retreat is the raising and the take down of the flag at the beginning and end of the day. I saw at this ritual the flag being raised to start the day and being taken down to end the day. I saw Airmen deliver the flag closely to their heart and follow a ritual to raise the flag for the day with the reveille. For the retreat I saw the Airmen take the flag down and fold it into a precisely folded neat flag, I than saw them march off with the flag to there heart again. I heard music during both of these rituals, each different song tells you the start of which ritual is being used. As defined as a ritual being actions performed according to a prescribed …show more content…
I came to this conclusion due to the much given respect given during both of these rituals. Everyone remains silent and salutes if in uniform or puts their hand on their chest to show their respect to the flag. No one speaks of what is happening, because this is done five days a week to show the respect, and with that moment of silence everything is said within the silence. Concepts from class that are presented during this ritual are music, during the Reveille the song “To The Color” plays and during the Retreat the “National Anthem” plays. They also have specific phrases called out to the people raising the flag such as “Halt” and “Come Forward. Another aspect from class that could be altered-state was the way the airmen walked; they all had to in union and take the same exact steps at the same time. From viewing this ritual I was able to gather research and form my observation …show more content…
I have heard the Reveille and Retreat when I have been on the base, but I had only heard the music and never saw the steps with the flags. I personally think I learned a lot because I gathered research on how the flag is folded in which they show absolutely no red. I saw how much practice and precision it takes to be in charged of raising the flag and to take it down is. Having to do an observation project sounded it easier than said; honestly I thought the hardest part of this project was formulating my thoughts into this paper. Overall, observing a ritual was not that challenging because when I was brainstorming ideas there were so many options I could of done for my ritual. For my ritual I wasn’t so much as an outsider, but I did lack the knowledge that insiders would have known. Since I do not really attend the Reveille and Retreat I did not know that much about it besides the mannerisms you are suppose to have when it starts. I think as an outsider I was able to gather more questions and information about the Reveille and Retreat, since I was observing the sequence of events I noticed really what was happening such as basic hand movements and what people did in the moment the music played. The Reveille and Retreat is important for military, I think from the basics of a ritual the Reveille and Retreat is classified as an ritual because of