WASHINGTON - Ted Kennedy followed his brothers Jack and Bobby on Saturday from the pinnacle of politics to Arlington National Cemetery with a major difference - Ted's cortege was stopping at the Senate.
Ted Kennedy made the Senate home for nearly a half-century, and his work there is his legacy. John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy also served as senators, but for them Congress was more of a way station and launching pad for White House runs.
Also unlike his brothers, who were taken away young by assassins, Ted had the chance to plan his funeral with his wife, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, and his three children before he died of brain cancer.
The funeral Mass in Boston was for the grand and powerful. According to Senate aides, Ted and Vicki ordered the Senate stop to allow his staff to gather on the Capitol steps and pay their respects.
Then Vicki agreed to allow former Kennedy staffers to join the current staff. And when staffers for other senators, Capitol workers, and cops and groundskeepers who loved Ted also asked to attend, Vicki agreed again.
In 1963, amid the shock of a presidential assassination, Arlington was chosen for JFK's grave. That decision was made by Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy against the wishes of many in the Kennedy family, who wanted to bring him back to Massachusetts.
In 1968, RFK was buried about 100 feet from JFK on a 3-acre hillside affording majestic vistas of the capital city. The train bringing RFK's casket from his New York City funeral ran late because of the crowds lining the tracks along the way, and his burial was the only one ever conducted at night at Arlington.
Ted's grave site is about 100 feet to the left of Bobby's, and awaited the cortege that would come past the Lincoln Memorial en route to Arlington, where the military stood guard.
To avoid the jitters as he prepared, bugler Sgt. Maj. Woody English told the Daily News he would blot out the worldwide audience and focus hard on the grieving family at graveside as he plays taps.
"You zoom in on the family, you're playing for them," said English, the special bugler for the U.S. Army Band. "It's a way to get through it."
"It can get a little nerve-wracking" in the effort to hit the 24 notes of taps perfectly, added English, 56, of Coldwater, Mich. "Some do it fast, some do it slow. I think it has to sound easy, it has to sound free. For me, it's just trying to make it as soulful a rendition as possible."
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