Back in Business

6 months off. During that time it's not like I was incredibly busy or that I even had something better to do. It's just that I didn't feel like blogging or doing much associated with online communication. During that time I never considered this blog to be dead, merely hibernating. Thus, with that little explanation, we continue on.

Back in Japan after a lovely trip back to the states. Saw lots of family and got plenty of sleep. In my book there's not much more you can ask for on a vacation. But that's now over and I probably won't have that again until next Christmas. We're jumping right in on the Army band side of things. A few gigs already made me realize that it isn't easy coming back to playing. The next few weeks are going to be a rebuilding of my "good" sound. It's been passable, but to my ear regrettable thus far.

The most interesting gig so far has been playing for CW5 Collier for his retirement. CW5 is the highest warrant officer rank you can achieve. It's reserved for specialized positions like pilots, conductors, etc. High skill positions that deserve officer-type pay, but don't necessarily involve officer-type work. That being said, CW5 Collier was the senior CW5 of the army. He's been in active service for almost 40 years. He started as a Private in Vietnam. The first medal he received was a Silver Star for valor on the battlefield. After more combat and more medals, he followed an infantry career path that led him into the Green Berets, Rangers, and Special Forces. After a few years of that he thought to himself, "it might be fun to be a pilot", so he went to flight school and became a warrant officer. He has over 11,000 hours of flight time in helicopters and jets. 11,000. That's way more than a whole bunch (to use technical terms). His uniform cannot hold all of his awards. Medals and badges and everything else goes from his pockets all the way to his shoulders. Seeing him in Class A's is a very impressive sight.

After all this time in the army I wouldn't describe him as normal, but he is still very friendly and approachable. He has a couple of good friends in the band so I would see him every once in a while but never really sat down and talked with him. It's hard to imagine the wealth of knowledge and stories that could be in that one guy. He's retiring back to a farm in Tenessee. He says he's owned it and worked on it for the past 15 years even though he's only been able to visit it 5 times. Once there he'll work with cattle, play golf, and fly his own plane.

Mr. Collier, I salute your work and wish you the best of retirement. You have certainly earned it.