This is the first posting in what is hoped to be an active blog. Welcome to alumni, fans, and anyone with an interest in the Greatest Drum & Bugle Corps and Pipe Band the U.S. Armed forces ever had.
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This is the first posting in what is hoped to be an active blog. Welcome to alumni, fans, and anyone with an interest in the Greatest Drum & Bugle Corps and Pipe Band the U.S. Armed forces ever had.
Hi Ben
Never knew this existed…..or wasn’t paying attn !
Seems like a great idea………We need to publicise it
I can put it out to a few places if you agree,
I’ve always been a fan of the Air Force Drum and Bugle corps since the late 1950s.
I would like to get in touch with one snare drummer’s John R. Dowlan. I have a copy of his 1961 pamphlet on back sticking, with a handwritten inscription to Alex Haddad, founder of the Phantom Regiment:
“To Alex — With best regards to an old dear friend”
Signed by Mr. Dowlan and dated 6/15/61
Alex must have given me this pamphlet when I joined the Chicago Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps at the end of 1961.
I know the Cavaliers didn’t do backsticking until at least 1964 and then really used it to its full potential in the 1966 and 1967 drumlines.
If anybody reads this post, please forward my e-mail to Mr. Dowlan.
Curt Johnson
curtjo@earthlink.net
Thank you!
I heard the AF D&B Corps in 1963 in Orlando, Fl. when I was in a Jr. Corps. They played “The Stars and Stripes Forever”, with a soprano bugler playing the piccalo part. Unreal!!! Is there any chance anyone out there can tell me where I can get a cy of the Corps’ reperatoire (sp? ) of that time?
Many thanks, Roger
I was a friend of the your late member George G Lucas, in our high school band in East Los Angeles. Our parents were also friends. George joined the Air Force in 1950 and went to the Bagpipe Corps. I joined the Air Force in 1951 and went to the 541st AF Band at Williams AFB, Arizona. Later went to Aviation Cadets, flew, had a six year break in service, recalled to the AF in 1962,spent some time in Vietnam, and retired from the military in 1976. I’m now an Alaska state legislator.
After high school, I saw George in DC in 1954, and again in 1968 when I drove through Cheyenne. When my son drove through Cheyenne about 1994 or so, I asked him to go by and see George – that’;s when I learned the sad news of his passing away.
Just wanted you all to know what a fine young man George was, and especially wanted you to know how pround he was to be a bagpiper in your unit.
Best wishes, Bob