41 MILES OF TAPS ON SATURDAY

Elmira Star-Gazette ^ | May, 16, 2005 | Jeff Murray

[ramseye]

There will be at least 800  brass musicians playing TAPS Saturday.  This will extend from Elmira-to-Bath, NY; a distance of 41 miles.  The first brass musician will begin to play taps at 10 a.m..  Musicians will be stationed every 80 yards and will begin playing an echo on the third note of the previous musician's taps. 

http://www.echotaps.org

 

[ramseye]

This is the link to the webpage http://www.echotaps.org

[Chi-townChief]

And here I thought it was free beer.

[Velveeta]

That should be something.
Misty-eyed here just thinking about it.

[kingu]

Wish I could be there to see and most importantly, to hear...

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Just wow. O to hear that, as Flanders Field or other war poems scroll by....


It is not the politician who has given us freedom of speech....it is the soldier.....

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for posting the information and pinging me to it.

Very nice.

[Professional Engineer]

ping

[Soaring Feather]

Thanks for the ping.

[Calpernia]

There will be at least 800 brass musicians playing TAPS Saturday. This will extend from Elmira-to-Bath, NY; a distance of 41 miles. The first brass musician will begin to play taps at 10 a.m.. Musicians will be stationed every 80 yards and will begin playing an echo on the third note of the previous musician's taps.

[Miss Marple]

Wow! I hope there is some television coverage of this! What a neat idea!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[mewzilla]

I'll see if I can scare up any links with local coverage. It was incredibly well done. We were parked, as it turned out, right next to a relative of Mr. Mew's (retired Army), who was there to play his trumpet. We hadn't seen him in a while, so it was a nice bit of luck. He, and all the others we heard, played beautifully. Turnout looked pretty good along the part of the route we saw. Folks pulled over in cars, sitting out in their yards, waiting in parking lots. I saw a lot of flags and yellow ribbons :)

[mewzilla]

Click here for the Star Gazette's story from this morning.

[Nik Naym]

I just returned home from this. The NY Guard was heavily involved. We spent the last week marking spots for each bugler over 41 miles of roads, as well as performing other necessary tasks to make this work.
This was a HUGE undertaking. Coordinating the transportation and distribution of what turned out to be approximately 870 musicians over a 41 mile route was quite a challenge. Amateur radio operators provided excellent service, and without their help this simply would not have worked.

Yes, it worked! The echo was tracked by chase vehicles and also by reports from nearly 25 checkpoints manned by amateur radio operators. a few instances of a "false start" popped up in a few spots due to someone deciding to practice, which set of a train of taps echos! We managed to stop these in time to prevent them from ruining the correct, continuous echo thanks to the aforementioned ham radio operators who assisted us.

Many civilian volunteers, the M.A.R.S. amateur radio people, the amateur radio volunteers (over 50 were required and we got them all!) the civil air patrol and various local and state police made this possible. The local citizens were great and treated all of us in uniform like gold the whole week.

Several Volunteer Fire departments also stepped up, providing manpower, route safety during the event, and most importantly providing us with places to set up operation centers, and a place to stay.

I want to mention in particular the East Corning, NY Volunteer Fire Co. which hosted my unit. We were literally given the keys to the facility, and were encouraged to use anything and everything we needed as we actually lived there for a week. Several of the Department's members were always dropping in to see if we needed anything, and were always seeking to do more to make us feel at home. A great bunch of folks!

Sorry for the disjointed rambling report. I have been going for the last week with only a couple of hours sleep each night, just got home, and have yet to even unpack the car. I still have after action reports to write before I can go get some sleep. Ugh!

Nik

[ramseye]

Thanks for the update.  My wife and I arrived at Bath High School at 6 a.m. and were assigned as escorts to a bus with 40 musicians. 

They had an escort (monitor) for every 5 musicians. This was to help anyone who was not familiar with the area and to insure that the musicians lineup at the proper intervals. They had over 20 busses to transport the 866 total musicians who participated in this event. 

It was a very moving experience and was completed when all 866 musicians assembled at the Bath VA parade grounds for a mass playing of TAPS. 

 

Click here for the local TV coverage:   http://www.wetmtv.com/    There are 2 stories.

[Ciexyz]

Kudos to all involved in this musical memorial.