The Daily Poop - Fri., 14JUN13

Two weeks from now, the NMA reunion will be in full swing. I'll get to Virginia Beach the weekend before the reunion, so for me, there's really only about a week left. The excitement is beginning to kick in.

John Pastin in a state of first-
reunion befuddlement, 2009. 

I just heard from John Pastin. He's juggling his schedule so he can make it to Virginia Beach for part of the reunion. It's a reminder that you don't have to come to the entire shebang. People with weekend commitments sometimes can come for the first few days and hustle back home on Thursday night or Friday. The converse is even more common--folks with weekday commitments ("gigs," or in civilian language, "jobs")  still come for the weekend activities. The sign-in sheet in the registration room gets longer every day.

John Vasquez and grandson, 2012.

I also got a message form Johnny Vasquez, who must home in Florida this year. It seems like every year, he gets promoted higher in the ranks of the American Legion--he's a regional commander--and his duties grow. I'll miss his sense of humor this year.

The Daily Poop - Thurs., 13JUN13

Here it is, the first 2013 issue of the Daily Poop, the annual, laser-guided, heat-seeking bag of crap that leads up to the reunion of the Navy Musicians Association.

The event officially begins Wed., 26JUN, although I'll show up early. Once things get going, I'll begin LiveBlog2013, the ongoing, online reportage music, camaraderie and tall-tale-telling. I'll explain more about this at a later date.

Until then, you're stuck with the the Daily Poop.

I'm hoping to see a number of shipmates who've had to miss a reunion or two. Mike & Diane Beegle have moved to Pennsylvania from the West Coast, so I have high hopes of seeing these old friends from Navy Band Newport.

Pete Codispoti, another Pennsylvanian, has missed a year, and I really hope he'll make it to Virginia Beach. Pete and I met at a reunion a few years ago and really hit it off. 

The Beegles were career MUs; Pete Codispoti, like me, served a shorter hitch. This reflects the diversity of relationships that spring up in the NMA. You walk into the hotel at your first reunion to see old friends and walk away with new friends. We're a smaller fraternity than, say, the Worldwide Association of Boatswain's Mates. You don't have to have been stationed with an MU to share a common bond.

 

Oh, boy, two weeks. If you can't tell, I'm starting to get excited. I'll be back tomorrow with more scoop and poop.

If only I'd known.

Damn. Things would have been a lot different if I'd read this 1943 recruiting pamphlet, "Helpful Hints to the Navy Recruit," before I enlisted.

Some of the "don'ts" are obvious: don't disobey orders, don't leave things adrift, don't be afraid to ask questions. But that one down toward the bottom--I spent 13 years in the Navy, and nobody ever warned me about that.

New Zealand Navy Band: Whoa...

You'd think that Navy bands of other nations would lag behind us in stressing entertainment as well as musicianship. After all, didn't we invent the concept of Navy show bands?

You'd think that if, say, the Royal New Zealand Navy Band were to perform a number from West Side Story, it'd be, well, boring. You'd think they'd be musically precise, perhaps, but dull, lacking in flair, showmanship and basic razzmatazz.

You'd be wrong. Oh, so very, very wrong.

Taps: Navy Band Mid-South

Who do you remember on Memorial Day?

People disagree on the intent and customs of Memorial Day. I've been to ceremonies that honor every deceased veteran, whether they died of injuries in war or old age in the nursing home. Some families decorate the graves of all loved ones on Memorial Day, whether or not the departed served in the military. Sometimes you can't tell the difference between Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Armed Forces Day, great-great-uncle Hezekiah's birthday, a beer blast and a half-price sale on suntan lotion.

I grew up observing Memorial Day as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs defines it, a day that "commemorates the men and women who died while in the military service."

So, on Memorial Day, I particularly remember my grandfather. LCDR Frank Aloysius Mullen, USN, retired during the Great Depression, was called back to service in World War II and died in the last year of that war. As a child, we hung the flag that draped his coffin out the front window of our house every Memorial Day. As an adult, and a veteran myself, I continue that tradition.

I was born a few years after his death, so I have no specific memories of my grandfather. I remember him in the broadest of senses; at times we are called to ponder and reflect upon people we did not know, whose experiences we did not witness, yet whose legacies still affect us. For reasons that I cannot explain, because I don't fully understand them, I doubt that Frank Mullen III would ever have found a home in the Navy were it not for the family stories and remembrances of Frank Aloysius Mullen.

Who do you remember?