PROSECUTOR WITNESSED JFK FUNERAL

For Ian Sutherland, it was the funeral of funerals. Standing there some 15 feet from the casket, Sutherland witnessed President John F. Kennedy being laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

"There was a little girl in a blue coat in the Kennedy family. When they played "Taps," she came apart at the seams, and all of a sudden it was really, really sad," recalled Sutherland, who was an Army lieutenant at the time.

Tears ran down his cheek. Sutherland, who was 30 at the time, remembered not wanting to be photographed. "I didn't want to be seen there at all. We have an expression, `If you are not part of the ceremony, you fade away.'"

The burial of the slain president occurred 30 years ago on Nov. 25, 1963.

Sutherland, now an assistant prosecuting attorney in Cape Girardeau County, was in the Army's Third Infantry, the Old Guard.

"That was the Army's ceremonial unit. I was the executive officer of C Company of that unit," said Sutherland.

The Old Guard, composed of some 500 to 700 soldiers, was actively involved in the state funeral for Kennedy, Sutherland said.

He was assigned to funeral duties at the White House. He saw the flag-draped casket bearing the body of the president being carried out of the White House East Room on Sunday, Nov. 24, 1963, on its way to the nation's Capitol.

On Monday, Nov. 25, Sutherland was at the White House when journalists were briefed about arrangements for the funeral.

"It was fascinating," he said, recalling the activity surrounding the funeral. "It was like being a part of a major movie without any of the manipulations that go on behind the scenes."

The funeral procession occurred that Monday, with the president's body being brought back to the White House and then on to Arlington National Cemetery.

At the cemetery, Sutherland said, he was involved in seeing to the seating of dignitaries such as French President Charles De Gaulle. The dignitaries, however, decided to stand, he recalled.

"I was chief cook and bottle washer," observed Sutherland, who said he and other soldiers did what he called the "heavy housekeeping" duties associated with the funeral ceremony.

"The president (Lyndon Johnson) and his entourage arrived. The Congress came in by bus and moved in behind us," said Sutherland.

Hemmed in by reporters, dignitaries and the Kennedy family, Sutherland, who was dressed in the blue uniform of the Old Guard, couldn't move to a less conspicuous spot.

"I had to stand there right in the front row by the grave," he said.

"It was a beautiful day, a gorgeous day -- cold, but very, very pretty. The sun was going down..." he remembered.

There had never been a funeral like it. Heads of state from all over the world attended.

"It was the first one of its kind," said Sutherland. "It came out of the blue. It was planned on an hourly basis....It went off almost flawlessly."

Its uniqueness also had to do with the man who was being buried.

"First of all, you remember it (the Kennedy presidency) was sort of Camelot on the Potomac," said Sutherland.

"They were regal. The atmosphere was that of a monarchy. The whole thing was such that you had that surrealistic feeling that you were kind of involved in something that you really didn't know where you were going."

Sutherland spent much of the next year tending to military duties at Kennedy's grave. "We were running 25,000 to 30,000 people a day through there," he recalled.

"We were laying a wreath every 15 minutes up there from daylight to dark."

Sutherland said he saw the president's widow, Jacqueline, visit the grave on various occasions, as well as Kennedy's brothers, Ted and the late Robert Kennedy.

For those soldiers involved in Kennedy's state funeral, no other funeral can compare. "After the Kennedy funeral, everything was anticlimactic," said Sutherland.