Funeral w/ the sound of gunfire as a backdrop

Last week, there was a funeral service held for two soldiers from here who were killed in Afghanistan. It was not the first funeral service here since I have been here, and it seems like it will definitely not be the last. The soldiers from here are involved in a lot of the action in Afghanistan. For this particular funeral service, I was in the office, whic is at the chapel it was held at, to pick something up. As I was leaving, they did a 21 gun salute, followed by taps. What was eerie/strange/chilling about this, was the gunfire in the background. This post is a huge training area for soldiers, and there is often gunfire and explosions going on. It just seemed very eerie to hear a 21 gun salute while machine gun fire was being heard, and the same during taps. To think those may have beenthe same sounds these two young men heard in their last moments, and the fact that the guys shooting in the training area are headed to Afghanistan to do it for real, struck me very hard. Such is life on a military base.