Posted on 10/06/2005 1:57:07 AM PDT by real saxophonist
Great post. You don't join the Marine Corps Band without first becoming a Marine.
As a once upon a time tuba player, I can really appreciate that sentiment... :)
Taking time off from patrolling, personal protection missions and other combat assignments, the 1stMarDiv Band serenaded the departing division commander, then-Major General James N. Mattis, in August 2004, just outside the division combat operations center at Camp Blue Diamond in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. (Photo courtesy of CWO-3 Michael W. Edmonson)
As a former Marine, I can appreciate it, too.
I played tuba in the 5th army band and tuba, french horn, and trumpet in the 74th army band, 1964 to july 1967.
To the best of my knowledge, there were 7 army bands in vietnam doing rouine patrols along with everyone else.
Playing tuba (Sousaphone) was like walking around with a giant bulls eye on your shoulder.
Brings a whole new meaning to "this one time, at band camp..."
A student I went to high school with in Wisconsin was in the White House Marine band. David Wundrow played all the bass instruments, including string bass. We came from a small town and sure were proud of him. I have no idea where he is today. I think he graduated HS in either 1954 or 1955.
"We can go from clarinets to M16s in a heartbeat,"
Hear that, Mick, Dixie Chicks, Bruce, and Bono?
Marine musicians play brave dual role
Viewers who have watched the 1st Marine Division Band march in California's Rose Parade, resplendent in spotless dress blues, would never have recognized the bandsmen outside Ad Diwaniyah. Hunkered down behind .50-caliber machine guns defending the perimeter around division headquarters, sunburned and coated with Iraqi dust, the musicians had become warriors.
Marine musicians have performed a dual role for the Corps for 230 years. That was underscored in October 2003, when the 1st Marine Division Band led a parade through Oceanside, Calif., welcoming home 10,000 troops who had helped defeat Saddam Hussein's forces.
The bandsmen themselves had returned to the states only months earlier after helping protect the convoy fighting its way to Baghdad.
A bandsman's job can be far more hazardous than marching through Pasadena playing "Semper Fidelis."
Following the Corps' mantra "Every Marine a Rifleman," percussionists and trombone players, like cooks and clerks, are trained to fight when necessary, and to fight well.
Marine bandsmen - excluding only the "President's Own" ceremonial band in Washington - have been deployed into combat since the Revolutionary War.
"We can go from clarinets to M-16s in a heartbeat," says Chief Warrant Officer Mike Edmonson, the saxophonist and 18-year Marine veteran who leads the band.
Having served with the band after the Korean War, I had the honor of playing with today's musicians at Camp Pendleton during a reunion in April 2002. Less than a year later, 49 of those men and women, several from Greater Cincinnati, were retraining on M-16s and machine guns and shipping out for Kuwait.
When coalition units drove into Iraq, the musicians shared with infantry the suffocating heat, stress and danger of a desert war. After Baghdad fell, the band again unpacked instruments to support morale with music. But as the insurgency grew, they resumed their combat assignment.
After a second seven-month deployment, they returned from Iraq with a feeling of relief, but also of satisfaction that they had performed well in a dangerous, unfamiliar role - and had lost no one in the process.
"The fact that you play tuba," as one Marine explained to a reporter for National Public Radio, "doesn't make you any less lethal."
Nor, as the band demonstrated once again in Iraq, does it make you less willing to go into harm's way to serve your country.
Don Bedwell, a writer who lives in Madeira, served in the 1st Marine Division Band from 1954 to 1957.
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050324/EDIT02/503240416/1021/EDIT
Semper Fi
1965 Dominican Republic... American Embassy under attack by rebels. Holding them off was small detachment of Marines and their trumpet player who manned an M60 machine gun. As we arrived on the scene routing the rebels I heard this trumpet playing something that sounded familar. What the hell is that trumpet playing I asked LT. "Charge Dummy!" replied LT. :-)
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thanks for headsup! TubaGuy Ping.. you might enjoy this.
I am a marching band groupie. follow Hudson HS each season. 300+ strong & a swing marching band that has won top honors in national competition. SOOOOO much difft than when I was in HS .
Loved the military bands in the Inaugural parade
We-(highschool) had the coolest uniforms....burgandy wool, military fitted top, & trousers...and a full size burgandy cape that flashed gold taffeta when we spun around.....LOL...it was truly cool.---We thought we were the cat's meow :)))
Our little suburbia Tennessee highschool played at the Cotton Bowl one year....(we weren't halftime, just pregame)
A movie I really recommend is....Drumline!....super movie!
great movie.. saw it twice.
remember section.. flight of bumblebee? har!
Ping for Military Band players...
Just so you see this. I was in during the first Gulf War; Didn't have to go over there.
Good evening and the very best to you and yours.
Semper Fi
Tommie
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