The USAF Honor Guard has an annual get together of some sort, I believe it started about 5 or 6 years ago. It’s in Washington and I haven’t been able to make one yet, doubt that I ever will.
I have my doubts that there would be anyone there from my era.
I don’t remember if I told you this already, bear with me. I worked with and still keep in touch with an “Old Guard” from the same period as when I was there. I believe he was there in ‘62-’63. By the name of Dick Persich.
By the way, do you know if the situation was the same in the Army Band? That there were very young Senior NCOs?
As noted earlier, E8s and E9s were commonly 18-20 years old in the USAF Band. The reasoning was that these guys were the very best in their fields and in order to retain them, they had to pay them the best they could.
It's pretty much the same today with the addition of a military police detachment and a public affairs staff. They do a lot of performances out of the D.C. area which we did not do back in the day. For us it was a big deal to do an arrival ceremony at Dulles National for some foreign despot from a banana republic. Now the Drill Team and Fife & Drum weenies travel all over the world. It's a lot different than when we were there.
As for the musicians, here's the pay scale from 1963, which I'm sure you'll fondly remember:
http://www.dfas.mil/militarypay/militarypaytables/militarypaypriorrates/1963.pdf
They had to do something to attract them to the military bands.