Months ago, the local Island Park Productions contracted an evening of music by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band. As explained in the program, the US Marine Band was established in the year 1798 by an act of Congress. As such, it is the oldest continuously active professional musical group in the country. There are Marine Corps bands at several bases, but there’s only one called “The President’s Own.” Its mission is to provide music for the President of the United States and the Commandant of the US Marine Corps. Since neither of those leaders were present in Winfield last Monday night, the performance by “The President’s Own” US Marine Corps Band was indeed a privileged and special event for us commoners.

The planners were ecstatic to book the Band, and tickets for this free concert became available a month in advance. Most of the music events billed as “Duck Jams” are held at the Amphitheater in Island Park. However, the Marine Corps Band required an indoor venue. The location was to be the local High School auditorium, with limited seating. Though there was no admission charge, tickets were required in order to attend.

We got our tickets early. Noting that they would be honored only until fifteen minutes prior to the concert when any remaining seats would be opened to non-ticket holders, we arrived thirty minutes early. The high school parking lot was already packed with cars, more than I recall ever seeing at any other event. A line of attendees stretched around the auxiliary gymnasium and north, halfway to the office doors. There was no way all these people would fit in the auditorium.

Evidently, the event planners agreed. We made our way to the end of the line, and followed its progression inside, to discover that the venue had shifted to the main gymnasium. Bleachers on three sides were open, and row upon row of chairs were set on the gym floor facing risers at the east end reserved for the Band. Some people brought in camp chairs and set them up at the railings above the bleachers. There was a seat for everyone who came. Nobody was turned away.

We found a place in the bleachers amidst friends and strangers, and awaited the first downbeat. It was an impeccable performance. The musicians filed in, all wearing uniforms of red coats and blue trousers (or for some women, skirts). With the precision one would expect from the US military, the program started exactly on time. For two hours, people from all walks of life, and from every political party tapped and clapped to America’s music. From traditional marches to classical compositions, from jazz to opera, the music lifted our hearts. For the space of two hours, we forgot our differences. We were all Americans, united by this honored military band.

Did the musicians know this is an election year? Undoubtedly. Did they know we were weeks away from what is likely to be the most important election of our lives? Most certainly they did. But it didn’t matter. They brought us an event that was perfect for these times. At the end they played a medley of songs that identified each branch of the US military and asked us to stand for the correct theme if we, or a family member, had served in that branch. For my own family, going back to my parents’ generation in WWII, the branches represented in my family included the army, the navy, the air force and the marines.

The audience provided three standing ovations during the performance—and for each, right then and there, the band performed an additional song that wasn’t in the printed program. For me, the highlight of the evening was the encore solo which the concert moderator sang following her soprano solo from Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet. SSgt Hannah Davis sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” a song that bolstered my difficult adolescence and gave me hope as well as strength to keep going years ago. The song itself is from an 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Carousel, but I learned it two decades later. I hadn’t thought about the song for a long time, but Monday night as SSgt Davis shared its message for everyone in the gym, I thought, “How appropriate.”

When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don’t be afraid of the dark.

 

At the end of the storm

There’s a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a lark.

 

Walk on through the wind

Walk on through the rain

Though your dreams be tossed and blown.

 

Walk on, walk on

With hope in your heart

And you’ll never walk alone.

You’ll never walk alone.

We can all take its message to heart. Those of us in attendance at the US Marine Corps Band concert were Americans, every last one of us. For one magical evening, we were united by music.