Congressional Dissonance: The Threat to our Military Bands

In the past week or so, several influential and important people in my life and work have shared their dismay about an amendment to the House version of the Defense Authorization this year that would essentially gut the military bands programs. Specifically, it restricts performances in parades, civic events, holiday events, and other such public performances that aren’t funerals. For some more detail on this, as well as some of the problems and hypocrisy involved, you can read this, this, or this.

I’ll address some of that later, but I want to speak a little more personally about my experience growing up in proximity to one of these military bands. For disclosure, my father (who is now retired) spent nearly 30 years serving in the Air Force Band program, so I have personal experience but , as he is retired, no direct personal stake in this.

Growing up I of course got to see the military bands in parades, holiday concerts, civic events, and more like many other members of my community. However, the impact of having the Air Force Band of Mid-America near by was deeper than that. It’s members gave private lessons to music students in the community, including me. Groups and individuals came to schools and exposed students to all kinds of musical traditions. As a burgeoning musician myself, I was able to practice and perform with current and retired members of the band in church, school, and even as a part of their own concerts a few times. And make no mistake, when we talk about having the finest military in the world, that is all of it. Military band members are some of the best musicians in the country, and having such close and easy access to world class musicians in the communities across the country where the active duty and reserve bands are located.

That community impact goes even further. We have all heard that less than 1% of Americans serve in the military. As such, many people don’t see or interact with military members on a regular basis. As the bands perform throughout the U.S. and the world, however, they serve as an emissary and conduit between the military and the rest of the world. Seeing a precision marching band perform the Stars and Stripes Forever in a 4th of July Parade not only can fill those involved with national pride, it also gives the community a chance to publicly show appreciation to the armed forces.

These connections are deep, my father has been retired from the Air Force for over 10 years and still has people stop and talk to him because they recognize him from speaking at Air Force Band events. When I lived in Maryland, seeing the community response to packed concerts at the Air Force Memorial, the World War 2 Memorial, the Capitol Building, D.A.R. Constitution Hall and more was immense. I personally stood in line for nearly 2 hours just to get tickets to one of the Air Force holiday concerts, because there were enough people in front of me to wrap all the way around the building. People deeply care about the bands, and their excellence inspires this sort of intense connection to the broader community.

The history here is important too. John Phillip Sousa, the composer of basically every patriotic march you know, including our unofficial national anthem, got his start in the Marine Band, and through his time in the military bands was able to compose, direct, tour, and gain national fame. He returned to the service at the age of 62 to lead a branch of the Navy Band during WWI, because even in war there was room for music. Since he was nationally famous and fairly wealthy by then, he donated his salary to the Sailor’s and Marine’s Relief Fund.

During WWII, Glenn Miller, then an already successful Big Band composer and bandleader, wanted to join the war effort and was accepted into the Army Air Force. He then created the predecessor to the current military jazz band programs and toured Europe before disappearing in the line of duty.

Also during WWII, Alfred Reed, one of the preeminent American wind band composers, served in the Army Air Force Band, serving his country and also getting support for a long and productive musical career. Similarly, John Williams, the most well known living film composers, began his musical career in the U.S. Air Force Band, before going on to write the soundtrack to most of our lives.

Through war and peace, the military bands have provided another way to serve and a stable environment to thrive for these and countless other musicians. Imagine our national culture without these contributions.
Now to the actual politics of this – this amendment was proposed by Rep. Martha McSally, a retired Air Force Colonel from Arizona, and was approved by a voice vote, so there is no actual record of who and how many members of the House are in support. Earlier this year, before disparaging the military band service members and their work, Rep. McSally sang the National Anthem at a performance for the Navy Band Southwest. So, apparently, the existence of these bands and their performances in the community is too expensive to maintain, and takes away from our military readiness, but they are good enough to serve as a prop for a photo op.

The named reason for this is to save money. Supposedly, if the military bands no longer performed other than at funerals, it would save a bunch of money. But on the first part of that – would it? First, this amendment isn’t actually cutting the positions in the bands (although I’m sure that is coming), it just eliminates much of their mission, thus causing a bunch of idle time. Many of the events the military plays at will still have performers, but without the military bands those performers will have to be hired out, go through security screenings and background checks, and paid for the entirety of their time. All of that costs money, and would be extra costs in addition to the baseline of now. And you would then just have random musicians instead of a showcase of our military

As some of the articles before mentioned, the military band programs take up roughly .075% of the Defense budget. And that is if you take their entire cost altogether and say this bill will save that much (none of that is actually true). In the scheme of the defense bill, it is almost nothing, but these restrictions would devastate the bands programs. Others have pointed out parts of the Defense Authorization that cost more than this that were left untouched, and some of those are fraught with actual tough decisions and political peril.

But I want to focus on something that should be easier, not buying stuff the military says it doesn’t need. For years, the Defense Department has tried to cut back on things like tanks, planes, or just in general. These are even higher amounts of money than the entire military band programs cost, and they are things the military doesn’t want or need. Of course, one of the planes the DoD wants to retire is the A-10, which is what Rep. McSally flew, so maybe this is all legislation simply out of spite?

We don’t need to choose between having a strong defense and maintaining an important part of our nation’s cultural history. In fact, there isn’t really any evidence that attacking the military band program like this will save much money or really do much of anything but give a member of Congress more talking points about how she is tackling wasteful spending in Washington or some such thing.
Thankfully, this is not law yet. The Senate has to pass their version and then a conference committee will iron out the details. Make some noise before the music is silenced.

There are a few petitions out there, please consider supporting them:

https://www.change.org/p/u-s-senate-continue-military-bands-funding
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/continue-military-bands-funding