What would you do if the family requested that you perform the honours in their living room at some gathering that Jewish tradition requires some time after the internment itself?
It's kindof hard to keep to the 22-5 when you are confined by the couch and a coffee table.
How about if the casket with the flag on it is so positioned that you can't actually stand at the head or foot of it?
What do you do if the fallen soldier was also policeman, and the entire Placer County Sherrif's department is out there in stronger numbers than you are, and you have to combine the police force's honours with the Army's at the graveside? We had a flypast by almost every law enforcement agency in the State during the honours, where in the 22-5 does it say when it should happen? Oh, and by the way, think fast, because you've only just been told this, and the casket is arriving with its police escort flashing away.
If you are called to a service and discover the Navy is waiting there as well. The fallen serviceman was in both services, you discover, whose manual do you use? Or do you combine as best you can?
The fallen serviceman has two parents who are divorced. Who gets the flag? Or do you present both? If so, do you fold both separately, or at the same time? If presented at the same time, to whom does the higher-ranking presenter present? Or if the OIC presents to both, who gets it first?
Or the best yet, if pallbearing, and the casket happens to be cheap, wet and the body falls out the bottom, what is the correct manner in which the pallbearers are to act? Really, we had that problem. I'm pretty sure the manual doesn't cover that.
Maybe a more commonplce problem: At a memorial service where there is no casket and the flag starts out folded, what do you do if upon unfolding the flag you discover that it had been initially folded incorrectly (not by the Army) and has now come out 'backwards'. It's not in the manual, but there's a way to do it in a smart, uniform and soldierlike manner.
Even things which are specifically addressed in the FM may not always be practicable. For example, the position of the bugler is specified as being 45 degrees off the foot of the casket or wherever, facing over the casket. In full view of all and sundry. But what do you do if the 'bugler' is in fact a chap with a boom-box and a CD of Taps? (Don't laugh, the Army is chronically short on Buglers). Or if, in more recent times, the bugle is actually one of those electronic things and everybody can see the blinking lights and speaker in it? There are times when it's better to make a conscious decision not to follow the manual at all.
I've clocked up several hundered funerals so far, and whilst we try to follow the official format as best we can, it simply isn't possible in all circumstances.
NTM