The Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif., band conducted what could be its last performance on Dec. 7th, at the Palm Springs Convention Center in Palm Springs, Calif., in front of a crowd of 3,000 people in attendance at the annual holiday concert.
Early next year, the Marine Corps is scheduled to deactivate two of its 12 bands; the Twentynine Palms and the Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Ga. bands.
These will be in conjunction with a national personnel downsizing and reorganization across the Marine Corps.
The two bands are most notable for their national contributions to the community relations program. According to the Albany band’s website, they traveled more than 50,000 miles to perform for more than 100 commitments. This included the reopening of the crown at the Statue of Liberty in Liberty, N.Y., appearing on live television for Good Morning America, and the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Fla. The Twentynine Palms band attended hundreds of events each year, to include the Veterans Day parade in Palm Springs and Marine Week events.
“These two bands were able to perform at approximately 35 percent of our civilian commitments each year and 30 percent of our national community outreach, which we consider to be events which are 100 miles or more from our Marine Corps base or installation,” said Chief Warrant Officer James Ford, head of the Marine Corps Music Program.
The deactivation of the two bands means a total of 100 enlisted and 2 officer positions will disappear over time as reductions begin to take effect.
“That will affect our field significantly, because due to their location and low density command, they were able to support a lot of our community relations events other bands with a higher military density were not able to go to,” said Master Gunnery Sgt. Brian Paradis, enlisted assistant to the head of Marine Corps music. “These bands were essentially our traveling ensembles. They could spend weeks on the road.”
Although the Marine Corps is losing two bands, musicians will still have an opportunity to play in other bands. Most members will be integrated into one of the other remaining bands.
“Typically musicians are hurting for jobs,” Paradis said. The military music program is one of the largest employers of musicians in America. Not only do you have the chance to serve your country, to earn that title of being a Marine and all the great things that come along with it, they get to be musicians and do something they love.”
The remaining bands will be scheduled to assume some of the events usually covered by the deactivated bands. Requests for a band appearance should still be completed through the official Marine Corps Community Relations website,
www.marines.mil/community.
“So we have to rethink, retool and be creative in how we approach this so we can keep Marine Corps music as a national asset; be able to still perform for the public and show America what Marine Corps music is about,” Paradis said. “So the remaining 10 bands will have to shuffle their thinking and shuffle their schedule to try and mitigate the factors of losing two bands.”