EXETER — For the 21st time last week, Michael Jackson, of Narragansett, stood tall in his blue uniform, put his bugle to his lips, and played the 24 mournful notes of taps.

But unlike at his previous performances at the Rhode Island Veterans Cemetery, on Saturday Jackson was joined by some 40 other brass players. Their purpose this time was not to lay to rest a deceased serviceman, but to honor Armed Forces Day — and also, to lay to rest the notion that there aren’t enough buglers to play live at every veteran’s funeral.

This is a mission for Jackson. The notes of taps are tattooed around his wrist. An Air Force veteran of the Vietnam War, he makes sure that every Rhode Island veteran buried at this cemetery gets a live performance of taps — not a recorded one, as so often happens. With 1,800 veterans dying each day, the National Guard says it doesn’t have enough buglers for them all.

Still, there were plenty of players at the Rhode Island Veterans Cemetery on Saturday. Some in uniform, some in casual garb, they formed a wide circle around the war memorial. The music started with one bugle. As soon as the first three notes sounded, the person adjacent raised his instrument and joined in, and three notes later, the next. On and on the tune — carried by bugle, tuba, euphonium, trombone, coronet — wove slowly around the circle and up the hill, where the final notes emerged from Jackson’s bugle.

Then the players strode through two rows of flag-bearers and lined up in a V-shape within the memorial for a prayer and reprise of taps, this time in unison.

Originally a call to summon soldiers to bed at night, taps was first played at a funeral during the Civil War and has become the most familiar American military tune.

This was the third year in Rhode Island for Echotaps, a ceremony sponsored by Bugles Across America, a national organization that recruits volunteers to play taps at veterans’ funerals. Echotaps was to be held at other veterans’ cemeteries around the country on Saturday.

In Rhode Island, many of the people came because they know Jackson from the Jamestown Community Band or from the Celtic Gathering, the band in which he plays 12-string guitar.

Fred Pease, of Jamestown, had gone with Jackson to upstate New York in 2005, and joined buglers who stood along a 42-mile route to play serial taps, each starting up three notes after the previous player; it took longer than two hours for the tune to make its way among more than 800 musicians. Now he participates in the Rhode Island Echotaps because “it’s a good cause.”

“This is one thing you can be sure no one is profiting from,” says Pease, a research vessel captain with the University of Rhode Island. “It’s to honor the people who died for us. I cry when I hear taps.”

Martin Hellewell, a retired principal of Wickford Middle School, came in his Navy uniform, playing an 81-year-old double-bell euphonium, a rare instrument that can sound like a trombone or a baritone horn. Scott McEneaney, a music teacher in Newport, brought a bugle. He doesn’t have any military connections, but heard about Echotaps through musical friends. “I love to play and this is a very patriotic event,” he says.

And what about Michael Jackson, the man with Taps tattooed around his wrist? Why is taps so important to him? “Any eligible veteran deserves the honor and dignity of live taps at their funeral,” he says. His father and his uncle are buried in this cemetery.

Jackson hopes that today’s returning veterans get better treatment than he received when he came home from Vietnam. “They spat at us. They called us baby burners and threw cans at us.”

“I forgive them. I really do,” he says. “They’ve made it up in spades.” Today, people who’ve never served in the military come up and thank him for his service. He appreciates that deeply. It’s never too late for thanks, he says.

For a small stipend that covers his expenses, Jackson plays taps at about four or five funerals each day. “I’m destined to do this for the rest of my life, as long as I have air in my lungs and two lips,” he says. “I enjoy it. It fills my heart.”

ffreyer@projo.com