Photo by Adam Skoczylas The Old Guard’s Caisson Platoon escorts the body of retired Air Force Maj. Gen. David Wherley and his wife Ann to their final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery Tuesday.

As a caravan of vehicles wended its way through the cemetery on the way to the grave site, four F-16 aircraft flew in formation through a nearly cloudless blue sky above Arlington National Cemetery.

Air Force Chap. (Lt. Col.) Stephen Tillett, D.C. National Guard State Chap. (Col.) James Driscoll, and Arlington Cemetery Chap. (Capt.) David Reedy officiated at the service. Maj. Gen. Errol Schwartz, Wherley’s successor at the D.C. National Guard, presented the U.S. flag to the Family at the site in recognition of the general’s military service.

Toward the conclusion of the service, a seven-member gun battery fired three rifle volleys in the air, denoting the general’s passing. The U.S. Air Force Band played several stately hymns and a solitary bugler sounded out Taps as mourners reflected on the couples’ accomplishments.

While in service, Wherley served as commanding general of the D.C. National Guard from July 2003 to June 2008, where he oversaw the operational readiness of the District of Columbia Army and Air National Guard units, which consisted of 2,500 Soldiers and Airmen. The general began his career in 1969 when he received a commission as second lieutenant through the Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Fordham University in New York.

Wherley also served as the commander of the 113th Fighter Wing at Andrews Air Force Base.

In 2007 the U.S. Secretary of Labor appointed Wherley to serve on an advisory committee for Job Corps, a federally-funded training and educational program for at-risk youth ages 16 to 24. He was appointed to the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission in 2003 while serving as the Guard’s commanding general. While at the Guard, Wherley helped establish the D.C. National Guard’s Youth Challenge Program

Ann Wherley had a degree in Education from Pennsylvania’s Kutztown University and worked as a mortgage broker and in real estate before retiring in 2007.

She also served as a docent at the U.S. Botanic Gardens adjacent the U.S. Capitol building.

David and Ann Wherley remained active in their retirement.

They continued to devote their time to the D.C. National Guard men and women and their Families through the About Face Program, the Youth Leaders Camp and the Family Readiness Program.

The couple died in a crash while riding on the National Capital Region’s mass transit system known as Metro.

They were returning to their home from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where they had just completed orientation in the facility’s volunteer program.

At a memorial service at the D.C. Armory Monday, witnesses testified that the couple always performed as a team, whether it was their devotion to the military personnel under them or troubled youth they sought to mentor in the District where they put down roots after retiring.

The two had been high school sweethearts at York Catholic High School in York, Penn., and were approaching their marriage’s 40th anniversary before tragedy intervened.

‘‘These two residents lived lives of fulfilling service,” said Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton at the armory.

‘‘They had a joint vision to retire in the District of Columbia and they became one of us.”

She noted how the general was a tireless advocate for education and that he would ‘‘show up in person, in uniform, before the hard hats — the appropriators [of Congress]” to testify for programs that helped others better themselves.

‘‘He was a general whose dedication to his country will never be forgotten,” Holmes Norton concluded.

D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh said the country should take solace by reflecting on the example the couple set.

‘‘We forget to say thank you to those who hold the shield for us — firefighters, police officers and men and women in uniform,” she said.

The Wherley’s call to service was special, she added.

‘‘These are people whose lives will never dim because they are reflected in all of us.”

‘‘Service is what it was all about for David and Ann,” said Gen. Craig R. McKinley, chief of the National Guard Bureau. He said it probably wasn’t entirely coincidental that Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, had called him that day to ask what could be done to strengthen the Youth Challenge Program, a National Guard program for at-risk youth that David Wherley was an advocate for.

Maj. Gen. Harold Schwartz affectionately recalled how loquacious Wherley could be. ‘‘He could write a dissertation about the smallest thing,” Schwartz marveled.

And when conversations about work went long into the evenings, Schwartz said Ann would telephone to ask that he be sent home. ‘‘Can’t you make him stop,” he recalled her saying. ‘‘Don’t you have a secret code that can turn him off?”

Schwartz said Ann was instrumental in the About Face program, another National Guard initiative mentoring troubled youth. ‘‘Ann spent her life with that program,” he said.

‘‘She would make peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids [during activities] because it might be their last meal of the day.”

Clare Wherley, the general’s sister, also emphasized the importance of the couple’s teamwork, insisting that Ann was more than a helpmate.

‘‘I want you to give Ann a standing ovation for her contribution to this country,” she said. And with that, mourners stood for a sustained applause that filled the armory.

The couple is survived by their son, Army Staff Sgt. David Wherley of Fayetteville, N.C., a daughter Betsy Regan, her husband John and granddaughter Evann.

The Wherleys’ final resting place is just down the hill from where Gen. John Joseph ‘‘Blackjack” Pershing is buried. Pershing (1860-1948), is the only person to be promoted in his own lifetime to the highest rank ever held in the United States Army — General of the Armies, a position that no longer exists.