Originally published in the Rock Island Argus
and Moline Dispatch, June 17, 2010
Copyright 2010 Frank Mullen III
Lately, I find myself whistling "Anchors Aweigh" at the oddest times.
In a few days, I'll fly to San Antonio, Texas, to spend a few days with some of this country's finest musicians. I'm going to the annual reunion of the Navy Musicians Association.
Although some of us are still on active duty, most members have returned to civilian life after service in United States Navy bands. Our membership roster includes recording artists, music producers and Nashville studio musicians as well as schoolteachers, bus drivers and lawyers who play their clarinets and tubas on weekends at community band concerts.
Some were career military men and women; others were one-hitch sailors who were glad to get in the Navy and glad to get out. But we're all thankful to be back together once a year.
We share something more important than our common experience as military bandsmen: an indelible pride in service to our country, our shipmates and our Navy.
Our reunion is a few days of round-the-clock jam sessions and sea stories. On the closing night, we stand at respectful attention and sing the Navy Hymn in honor of our departed shipmates.
Like my comrades, I take pride in the contribution Navy bands have made to the Navy's mission and history. Yet, how often I've heard well-meaning people say to me, "Oh, you were just in a band? I thought you were in the real Navy."
I was, and so are today's young bandsmen. They willingly use their talents, not for personal gain, but in service to their country. They are sailors, musicians and patriots.
No one honors the flag of the United States more than Navy musicians do. On ships at sea and on naval bases at home and on foreign shores, when the American Flag is hoisted to preside over another day, that's a Navy band playing the National Anthem.
No one honors America's veterans more than Navy musicians do. When family and friends stand graveside at Arlington National Cemetery, bidding farewell to an old sailor, that's a lone Navy musician on the rolling hillside, sounding "Taps."
And no one does more to represent the Navy and its mission to the American public than Navy musicians. What does a recruiter do when he wants to promote the Navy at a public festival in a town park or city square? He asks a Navy band to perform.
In peace and war, the Navy's bandsmen are full-time sailors with full-time military responsibilities. About this, I need not brag; the story is better told by the spirits of the boys of Band 22, all of whom died at their battle stations in the ammunition hold of USS Arizona as horror rained from the skies over Pearl Harbor on that date that still lives in infamy.
Navy bands have changed since then. Sousa marches and Glenn Miller medleys still form a vital part of the repertoire, but today's bandsmen and women can rock 'n' roll, too. In fact, that's exactly what they'll be doing in Schweibert Riverfront Park in Rock Island at 7 p.m. on July 3, when Navy Band Great Lakes' contemporary music ensemble, Horizon, performs for the Independence Day celebration. The band plays jazz, rock and pop music with a youthful energy and mature expertise that the audience is sure to enjoy.
Although probably not as much as the old guy who'll be sitting in a lawn chair, wearing a blue Navy Musicians Association tee-shirt.
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