This morning we had another morning ceremony scheduled. I was never able to talk to my Point of Contact (POC), but late last night I realized that he had emailed me and asked me to call. Too bad that I don’t receive email on my phone, and I didn’t see that message until well after 10pm. I decided to cross my fingers that things hadn’t changed since he didn’t mention anything in the email. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that when we got to the ACS building, the folks at the desk knew nothing about any graduation ceremony. So we re-packed the van while I tried to call the POC, but got no answer. SFC Tuggy suggested I ask the folks in the ACS where Blesse Auditorium was located, since he remembered talking to someone about that venue. We got directions and headed down the street. (I suppose that’s the reason we always try to arrive at least an hour early … you never know when you’ll be at the wrong location!) We found the helicopter, building, and finally the auditorium. Nobody was there, but it was obviously set up and seats were labeled for a graduation.
The ceremony itself went fine, even though we got the script about 5 minutes before we started playing and had to make a few changes. Good thing we’re so flexible. The class was comprised of doctoral candidates in a military / Baylor University partnership program for physical therapists. According to the speeches the program is currently ranked 5th out of several hundred programs in the nation. We got several compliments about “live” music being so much better than someone running an iPod or having no music at all.
After returning to the band hall we read through new music for about 2 hours. SSG Cameron has his eyes on a relatively new Tichelli piece that will be a real challenge to pull off. Unfortunately the biggest challenge will be to convince some of the section leaders that we should even give it a try … there are a few who are quick to criticize and offer negative opinions. I suspect that following that heavy-duty music with a read-through of cheesy Disney tunes might have tempered their initial reluctance, but we’ll see. He’s also recommending “Scenes from the Louvre” which I remember playing in high school or with an honor group way back when. I suspect many in the band have already played it, since SSG Cameron seemed quite surprised at how well the reading session went.
After lunch the group packed up the truck for perhaps the final time this tour. We do have a couple of things going on tomorrow, but most of the large equipment won’t be unloaded again until we’re putting it on the C-130. We had our first medical mishap of the trip, with someone’s finger getting mangled a bit. Hopefully his recovery will be swift, although he won’t be playing his instrument for a few weeks or even months. We also did most of the cleanup of the building, so it’s possible many of the band members have seen that building for the last time. I think we’re all itching to get home.
The afternoon has been spent helping people with computer glitches, more ratings, counseling, etc. I’m thinking an early bedtime might FINALLY happen. I guess we’ll see how many more emails, texts and calls I get. :+)
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