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Two Army band commanders, generations apart

SIERRA VISTA — There is more than a half century difference in their ages. Their war experiences during major invasions Army bandsmen is separated by nearly six decades.

But they do share many things in common. Both are Army chief warrant officers. Both are Army band commanders.

Both are instrumentalists — one who primarily played the clarinet and the other whose instrument of choice is the trombone. For the younger man and trombonist, 44-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Tom Bauer who commands the 62nd U.S. Army on Fort Huachuca, meeting his senior by 53 years, retired Chief Warrant Officer Dick Zoller on Tuesday, was a time to learn something about the history of band music during World War II.

And for the 97-year-old Zoller it was having the opportunity to hear of the differences involving today’s Army bands.

Starting out as a band commander in the early times of World War II, Zoller said the primary mission of an Army band was to help soldier “march properly.” To which Bauer said that aspect of Army bands “hasn’t changed.”

Sitting in a living room where Zoller resides, the two sat side-by-side as they talked about then and now. Zoller, a clarinetist, said “As a brand new bandmaster (meaning commander) I didn’t know what was going on.”

One of his first military assignments was with an Army band which harken back to the horse cavalry days and was still mounted. But as the old Army cavalry phased out and became armored forces, playing music on horseback phased out as well, he said.

Assigned to the 3rd Armored Division, Zoller said fortunately the division’s chief of staff “was musical himself,” which meant there at least was a sympathetic ear for Zoller to bend in seeking guidance and permission to do things beyond marching troops around. Retiring after 30 years, three months and 17 days, Zoller has nearly a third of a century of stories he could tell about his days as an Army band commander.

Bauer has been in the Army for 16 years.

Hanging on almost every word coming from the older man, Bauer was absorbing a major part of Army band history of an era long before he was born. And, for Zoller, what he heard from the younger man was the continuing importance of music in today’s Army by a generation of what Bauer calls “the iPod kids who can get their music at a touch of a finger.”

Both agreed each generation has its own music preferences.

For Zoller it was the big band sound and dance music. One time a USO show was in France entertaining the troops and the division band played musical backup for the traveling troupe, he said. Bauer said when he was part of the V Corps’ 76th Army Band during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — he was a young NCO then and not yet a warrant officer — the band would play for the troops, breaking up into small sets to make it easier to get around the country by helicopter.

Both men noted not all of an Army band missions were musical.

For Zoller, who arrived in Normandy the day after the D-day invasion — June 7, which was his birthday — his bands men were called upon to do a variety of support missions, as the American Army kept pushing the Germans back.

“We were road guides,” he said, noting those missions were to speed along convoys of tanks and trucks and to keep them on the right roads. Some times they had what can be best described as “duffle bag duty,” he said.

It was the least popular because soldiers’ duffle bags were kept in a central location as the Army moved along and when a soldier was killed it was the responsibility of a bandsman to find the deceased soldier’s duffle bag so it did not go forward as the fighting continued, Zoller said, adding he never lost one of is band members in combat although one died during training in the United States after being bitten by a poisonous snake.

Bauer said during the invasion of Iraq, he and other bandsmen were guards at access points to ensure no enemy or terrorists made it into an American compound or other secured area.

“I didn’t see my trombone for six months,” he said.

One of the first concerts the band performed was in Saddam Hussein’s Al Faw palace, Bauer remarked.

The two shared other war stories, as any GI does when they are around people who have been there and done it. And, both have an interest in music beyond the military. Zoller, along with is late wife, is one of the founders of Sierra Vista Symphony. He has had a long involvement in the local musical community.

Bauer said he wants to reach out to the local civilian community and have the Army band members perform at schools, and do some joint musical engagements with local choruses and other groups.

While the music of interest today, in Bauer’s time, is different from when Zoller was leading an Army band, both men agreed soldiers and civilians have always wanted and continue to want to be entertained. And, what many non-military affiliated people don’t understand is Army musicians are professionals, many with masters and above degrees in various aspects of music.

For Zoller those days moving along with an invasion force going through France and Germany and providing music to combat weary soldiers “is hard to forget, I don’t want to forget.” For Bauer the feeling is similar.

Members of Army bands have always done the job the are asked to do which is to tell “the Army story through music and to entertain soldiers, ” but he also noted band members are also are soldiers who in time of combat put down their instruments to do other critical missions.

photo at http://www.svherald.com/content/news/2012/08/31/325882