DC Day 6: Marine Corps Barracks Evening Parade

On Friday we ate dinner with my good college friend, Peter Wilson, and two of his three sons. In addition to playing Violin for the "President's Own" Marine Band, Pete serves as "The Voice" for the Marine Corps, doing much of the ceremonial announcing for events in D.C. This includes the well known Evening Parade held each Friday night at the Marine Corps Barracks, which features the Marine Corps Band, the Marine Corps Drum and Bugle Corps, and the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon. Pete was kind enough to arrange for our family to have seats at the June 26th Evening Parade, and it was wonderful to catch up with him following our collaboration at Carnegie Hall this past March.

A former DGN music student, Billy Pendergast, is now Captain William Pendergast, and the Captain (knowing through Facebook that we were in D.C. this week) graciously offered to meet our family prior to the start of the parade for a personalized tour of the Barracks. It was so great to see Billy again, and I really appreciated the way he engaged and interacted with Miles and Emery. Billy served tours of duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is currently working at the Barracks and White House, but may be transitioning to a new post at the Pentagon in the future.

Captain Pendergast even managed to "upgrade" our seating to a section very near the center of the Quad where we were surrounded by VIPs and very near the Congressmen who were reviewing the troops. As a music teacher, and someone involved with marching bands and drum corps for over three decades, I found the entire parade and review inspiring and rich with important musical history.