Michael Ruane

Seven decades later, the government is trying to put names to the old salts and teenage sailors who died when their ship was sunk by enemy torpedoes Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941.

It was Nov. 25, 1963. Army Sgt. Keith Clark, the Army bugler assigned to sound taps at John F. Kennedy's funeral, had the most important and solitary task of his life: Sound the 24 notes of the venerable melody that would close the nation's wrenching, four-day farewell to its assassinated president. But the pressure, the cold and the wait told on Sgt. Clark that day 50 years ago this month.