(Okay, so I didn’t write this on July 23. I’m backdating it so that it appears the evening after the event. It’s my blog I’ll date things as I please.)
The Chorus performed this morning at a ceremony hosted by the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the integration of U.S. Armed Forces. The guest speaker was retired General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Also present were a contingent of Buffalo Soldiers and Tuskegee Airmen. For the chorus, it was the usual ceremonial music; nothing out of the ordinary or special (except my ‘America the Beautiful’ of course). But the event itself and the speakers were excellent.
Colin Powell is a fantastic speaker. As far as we could tell, he didn’t have any notes to read. He simply spoke fluently and from the heart. He probably spoke about 25-30 minutes, but it felt like ten.
My favorite story he told was one about his childhood. President Truman signed the Executive Order allowing blacks to serve in the U.S. military 60 years ago, and present at that signing was the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. (This is as good a time as any to point out that the military certainly predated the civil rights movement by several years, though I’ll certainly admit it wasn’t smooth sailing, pardon the Navy pun.) Powell said that the eleventh Chairman was a kid of eleven playing in the streets of Brooklyn at the time. He joked around saying that he was not terribly interested in what was going on in the news at age eleven or saying to himself, “Self, you’re going to grow up to be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.” The idea of course was beyond imagining that a black man would be in that position, let alone be one of the most respected ever. A truly inspiring story.
It was a special event of which we were proud to be a part. Afterwards, we were told that our music was the perfect prelude to a memorable ceremony. I thought it was most appropriate that we had SFC Colin Firth, an African-American man, sing ‘American Soldier.’ Very cool. SFC Alex Helsabeck invited the audience to sing ‘God Bless America’ at the end of the ceremony, bringing it to a moving finish.
Thanks to SSG Jason Gottshall (or whoever took this photo) for the picture.
August 22, 2008 at 9:14 pm |
The photo isn’t mine. It came from someone on the hill via Alex. And by the way, you triggered both of my Google alerts (“army chorus” and “jason gottshall”).