Re: Military musicians in wartime


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Posted by Brant on April 25, 2001 at 08:20:38:

In Reply to: Military musicians in wartime posted by Curr E. Uss on April 24, 2001 at 11:17:22:

As noted before, this all depends on you branch of service and your assignment.
When most people think of military bands, they think of the premier bands in DC. These bands will probably never see combat or deployment in a forward area.

As for the other bands... I know the USAF bands have a strictly musical mission so at the worst you'd probably end up doing some troop morale gigs in the rear areas. Navy fleet bands travel with the fleet. So where ever the fleet goes, so goes the band. I don't know much about marine bands, but I think they deploy with their divisions much like the army. Any veterans or current members of the above bands, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

In the army there are several types of bands(besides the special bands). The major command (MACOM) bands would do as the USAF bands. Bands assigned to training posts would continue to support the trainees and the post their assigned to. Division bands will deploy with their division and, depending on conditions, will be performing a rear security mission as well as their musical mission. I spent my years in the army in the latter two bands and was lucky enough not to be deployed. But during Desert Storm, the 296th Army Band (Camp Zama, Japan) put away our horns and augmented the MPs for a month or so.

But the bottom line is that every service member takes the same oath of enlistment, so if worse comes to worse.....


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