It woke them up and put them to bed. In between, it called them to assembly, to morning drills and to the mess hall.
Years ago, the toot-toot-toot-a-toot of the bugle was as familiar on military bases as salutes and "Hup-two-three-four."
Little wonder it was a full-time job for Cpl. Louis H. Stohr.
A member of the drum and bugle corps, Stohr blew his horn morning, noon and night while serving at a U.S. Army base in Germany in the mid-1950s.
Retired to Tucson 20 years ago, Stohr continued to play the bugle at certain military ceremonies up until about a year ago, when he took ill.
He died on Thanksgiving.
During his Army years, "He played mess call, taps, charge and reveille. He had to wake the troops up," says Louis' wife, Carol Stohr.
People are also reading…
So who woke the bugler up, she once asked her husband. "He told me somebody else woke him up."
Louis, who learned to play the bugle from his dad, "was very proud of being a bugler," says Carol.
"He'd play reveille and taps in our apartment in the afternoons when nobody was sleeping. He had to get his lips conditioned."
Today, the call of the bugle is heard less and less at military installations. What little there is is probably canned.
"We have a loudspeaker that plays a recording of someone playing the calls," says Sgt. Stanmore Hinds, a trumpet player with the 36th Army Band at Fort Huachuca.
"Mess calls, first call for formation or assembly, they still play those bugle calls," says Hinds.
Recorded bugle calls are also heard at the fort during retreat, when the flag is lowered in the late afternoon. Taps is also played every evening.
And all of it automatically timed. Well, almost.
"Every now and then an actual bugler will play those calls, say when there's a battalion run and formation is held before reveille," says Hinds. "It's pretty cool."
Live buglers are also used for memorials and funerals, says Hinds, who plays a b-flat trumpet, rather than a bugle.
"A bugle is valveless. A b-flat has valves," he explains.
Meanwhile over at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the bugle call is heard only once a day, just before the flag is lowered at the end of the day and the National Anthem is played.
The bugle call, says Capt. Dejon Redd, is used to alert everyone to stand at attention for the National Anthem. That lone bugle call is also recorded.
While the base maintains an honor guard of about 30 members, no one in it can play taps, says Sgt. Michael Vause, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the honor guard.
"I've tried to learn it but I don't have the lungs," he says.
One who does have the lungs is Gary Harlan, who plays taps as a free service at least 15 times a month during funerals for veterans.
A member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 10188, Harlan, 57, started playing taps while still in high school.
"The American Legion would get two of us out of school to go play taps. We got $5 for doing this."
Today, Harlan is one of only a handful in Tucson who play taps the old-fashioned way.
The rest either use a CD or a bugle with a recording inside.
"They push a button. It sounds like taps, but it's not real," says Harlan.
He should know.
U of A president declines to sign shared governance contract with faculty
