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USAF Bands are in the fight

  • Published
  • By Capt. Richard Mench
  • U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West commander
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  I'm still amazed when people stare at me and say, "Our Air Force has bands? What do you do? You mean Tops in Blue? Oh, I see ... you play the National Anthem for a change of command."

I guess with bands at only ten continental United States locations and four non-continental United States locations, chances of an Airman being assigned to a base with a band are slim. With our area of responsibility often covering large portions of the world outside the base, it isn't really often an Airman will actually hear and see 90 percent of what we do. So this is a crash course in what our bands are and how they play a role in the Air Force's fight.

Stationed at Travis, the United States Air Force Band of the Golden West is typical of the eight CONUS bands. We are 60 professional Airmen musicians. 90 percent of us have some college, 80 percent have at least a bachelor degree and four of our members hold Doctorate degrees. Presidential Budget Decision 720 hit us hard, and over the course of next year we will be down to 45 members. As with most other units in the Air Force, we are becoming a lighter and more agile unit, but our mission will remain the same.

Our mission comprises three main goals: community relations, troop morale and recruiting. Community relations represents half of the 500 annual performances we do for the Air Force in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Nevada. We are an integral part of the Air Force's strategic communications plan to inform the public our Airmen are the best in the world and that they are serving heroically alongside their Army, Navy and Marine counterparts. Metaphorically speaking, we're able to go into a small community and "land a C-5" right on Main Street. We bring the excellence of the Air Force to people who might not ever get a chance to see an Airman. Although we play music, we also tell your story.

I'd like to share two quick anecdotes of the power of these performances. The Japanese Ambassador to the United States, the president of Sony Corporation and our chief of staff of the Air Force at the time, General John Jumper, were in attendance at a band concert in Washington, D.C. At the end of the concert, those three came back stage to greet the band. The Ambassador turned to General Jumper and said, "If your bands are this good, how good your pilots must be." But we stand for all Airmen. He would have said the same thing about any of your jobs had he been there to see you.

Another positive influence we had was outside Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The base commander there was getting letters complaining about low flying aircraft. Their public affairs officer called and invited us down to do a series of concerts. We had the wing commander come out and talk at the concerts about the operations of Edwards and the importance of the training and missions flying over their homes. The year after the concerts there was a 95 percent decrease in complaint letters to the commander.

Troop morale and ceremony has always been our bread and butter. Our career field continues to deploy in support of troops for both Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. We're getting smarter each time we deploy. We lengthen our stays and get to more remote locations just to bring a little bit of home-spun music to our troops down range. I was sitting in a United Service Organization lounge at the Philadelphia airport last week and an Army Lieutenant Colonel was there. He just came in on a Freedom Flight and was waiting for his flight home. We were talking and tears came to his eyes when he spoke of the time an AF band came to his remote base west of Baghdad. It was only for a night, but they hadn't had any entertainment in the year he was there. "What a difference it made for my troops," he told me.

Although we won't be deploying this 7/8 cycle, we recently recorded a compact disc with our popular music group, Mobility, that we hope to get into Travis Airmen's deployment bags as they get ready to go. With the excellence that is our Air Force, we will always tell your story through the universal language of music.