I'm a musician. I play music. That is my life's vocation; it's what I do best.
So after college, when I decided a life of teaching music to snotty-nosed redneck South Dakota grade and high school kids was not for me, I examined my options for the future. I was single, fluent in German, and anxious to go see the world, so I went and paid a visit to my local army recruiter to talk about life in an army band. Hell, my dad and my older brothers were in the military; it was a chance to serve my country and share that experience with them; and like I said, by being in the band I could do what I did best. How tough could that be?
The recruiter was great. We went out and had drinks, and over a nice buzz he reassured me that I'd be playing my horn all day and have the lifestyle of a carefree world traveller in my free time. Basic training? That would be a piece of cake. "Just get in good shape before you go, go with the flow and try not to make too many waves; you'll cruise right through it. Hell, it's only six weeks anyway. Plus with delayed entry you'll have all summer to party with your friends and get ready for it. Just sign here, pardner." Sounds good to me, man. Cheers. Let's go celebrate.
So I did. Because of my college, I was a squad leader in basic, and for the most part I got along fine. I managed to qualify on my weapon and pass the PT (Physical Training) tests, I got to enjoy the beautiful Missouri woods in the fall, and I even gave myself a day pass so I could go drink on my birthday.
Then it was off to the School of Music, at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base right on Chesapeake Bay between Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia. That was cool; after not having played for several months, it was like a six-month music refresher course. I got a nice horn, my instructors were good, living conditions at Scott Hall were pretty decent, and I made a lot of good friends (I could tell a million stories about all our crazy adventures). Having had college music courses meant I could relax and cruise through the classes; plus there were plenty of opportunities to party and enjoy life on the East Coast, throughout the Tidewater area, on the beach, and around the post. Having to keep my personal appearance militarily acceptable seemed like a small price to pay for the whole experience, so it wasn't that hard to play the game.
Then it was off to Germany. If there was one aspect of this whole scenario I was concerned about, this was it. This, after all, was where I was going to be spending a couple of years of my life.
The barracks at the 8th ID were kind of dumpy, but I recognized some faces from my days at the School, so that helped. It took a little while to get in with the cool crowd, but eventually that did happen.
Then about a month into my tour some of my band mates and I suddenly got summoned into our brigade commander's office to get grilled about our combat skills. I immediately went into into a shocked state of disbelief. I mean, what the fuck; there was NO mention of any of this combat shit at the School, and wasn't that a military institution? It had been well over six months since our crash course in combat at basic, so that was a dim memory at best. So I was in no position to express any kind of expertise in this area, especially standing at attention in front of a stern-looking full-fucking-bird colonel. It's probably a good thing I didn't have the presence of mind to say, "Look here, Army Boy; I am a MUSICIAN. The army signed me up to PLAY MY INSTRUMENT. That's my MOS; that's what I do. That's what you have all the grunts and machine gunners and tank drivers and signal people for, to go to fucking combat. My job is to play for your changes of command and Christmas concerts and retirements and funerals and all that shit." That would have undoubtedly gotten me court-martialed.
But that's what I thought afterward. And that represented the beginning of my understanding of how the Army Band system really works.
The structure of the Army Band hierarchy is such that the warrant officer in charge of the band doesn't have enough authority or standing to create or allow policy on just what his band does on a daily basis. Most regular army bands have to be attached to another unit, like an Adjutant General Company, headed by a captain (or higher) who more than likely has no clue what it entails to be a musician, or how to deal with them. He's much more concerned with covering his ass with his superiors than he is caring about what any pansy-ass musicians think. And a LOT of higher officers simply don't think that the time and trouble that we musicians took to learn and perfect our craft should be taken into any kind of account. We should be SOLDIERS first, then musicians; we should be doing more important shit like guard duty instead of what the army signed us up to do in the first place. So that's what we do. The bandmaster doesn't have any choice in this matter; if he wants to keep his job and get promoted and get lots of pretty medals on his uniform, he'll not only do as he's told, he'll kiss the ass of every officer above him who can demand any kind of duty he sees fit for us to do. And this was the scenario at all four of the army bands I was in. You not only get the bumbling, inept, good-ol' boy approach of bandmasters like Brian Arnold at 8th ID or Bacil Warren at 8th Army, but you also get the egotistical-hypocrite SOB treatment of someone like David Smith at Ft. Sheridan. Talk about fucking up a really good thing.
Is this the way it is at ALL army bands? In all fairness, I don't think so. I heard many stories from my peers about how cool life was in some of the other army bands they were in. You also have the special bands, like the ones in Washington DC, but in a sense they also come with a catch. You could audition for them right out of the civilian world and conceivably avoid the military-mind hassle altogether; but what was more likely the case, you had to spend a number of years convincing your superiors in your bands that you were worthy of a recommendation in order to apply to them. And that meant playing along with all of this dumb-ass bullshit you had to put up with along the way.
So the end result was that many army bands consisted of people with average-to-below-par musical skills kissing their way to the top of the command chain, and driving us prima-donna, bad-attitude, professional, real musicians back in to the civilian world. Can you imagine how different all our lives would be if life in the army band was like it could have been? With all the gung-ho, oo-rah Neanderthals leaving us alone to allow us to do what God intended us to do, which is to play top quality music? Not only would the general morale and performance levels of every band be a hell of a lot higher, but a whole bunch more of us would be enjoying our well-earned veterans retirement benefits right now, that's for sure.
Hmmm. Sounds like I'm bitter. Nah, I'm really not. Despite the BS, I still had a lot of fun and made some of the best friends I've ever had. And I learned a lot. I learned how to work with and deal with people I couldn't stand. I learned how to stand up for myself when I was out-numbered, yet have the presence of mind to know how to survive it. And probably most importantly, I learned that all the bad memories disappear after a while, and the good, funny, crazy ones remain.
So were the recruiters and the Army PR people lying? I don't think most of them really knew any better. The recruiters really didn't have any specific frame of reference to the army band scene, and the PR people are just writing what some officer tells them to write. The liars are the ones who consciously tell us what they want us to believe, and not what it's really like. And since they're in control, they're the most dangerous. And that's why I'm starting this campaign. Because it's about time someone starts telling you the real story.
Thanks for reading.
Terry
