Calling Commands

Here are some related questions I’ve received:

• What are some honor guard commands?
• What are some commands for an innovative drill routine?
• What are some exhibition drill (fancy drill, etc.- XD) commands?

Honor Guard
Honor guard commands are for honor guard units. If you need honor guard-type commands (firing party, pall bearers, casket watch, colors, etc.), it would be a very good idea to obtain a copy of my book, The Honor Guard Manual. Just knowing some commands doesn’t work as well as knowing exactly what to do when the command is called.

XD
XD routine commands can be anything you want. I’ll give you an example: “Resume, MARCH;” “Report, IN;” “Ready, MOVE;” “Echo Sequence, MARCH.” You can create any kind of command you’d like and making it sound cool helps as well. What you really want to steer away from is calling the standard “Forward, MARCH,” and Platoon, HALT,” etc. Try to use something that goes along with your XD sequence: you’ve worked hard to be innovative with your drill and movement, now extend that to the commands that are given.

Silent Drill Vs. Semi-Silent
Silent drill routines can be great fun to watch and take a great amount of practice to remember. With a completely silent routine (I’m not talking about constant foot stomps from the team commander…), you have to have every single step accounted for in your 50-foot by 50-foot square XD drill pad. This takes a great amount of planning to use the whole drill pad as effectively as possible while drilling the whole time. It can also be incredibly rewarding and a great achievement.  You can be a little less rigid with your step accounting, however, if you go Semi-Silent.

Semi-Silent means that the commander gives a command for a certain sequence of the routine, the team marches that sequence and then continues marching until the next command is given and the process is repeated. This helps align the team to certain parts of the drill pad so that the next sequence has as much room as possible. The team can march their whole routine with very few commands given.