Photo By Staff Sgt. Leon Cook | Staff Sgt. Jason Bemis, a trumpet player with the I Corps Army Band, plays during an...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. - Robinson B. Murphy Junior High School in Plainfield, Ill., held an assembly honoring its namesake May 9.
Those of you who just checked the dateline or the front page of the newspaper may be wondering why in the world a JBLM story is about a high school in Illinois. Well if you’ll hold your horses a moment, I’ll tell you!
The music was an unusual feature at this assembly. Why? It was provided by a brass quintet from the I Corps Army Band.
What was even more unusual was the band never even left Joint Base Lewis-McChord to do it. They were broadcast live from the Enterprise Multimedia visual information room, through an Internet feed, to the school assembly.
The brass quintet, led by tuba player Sgt. 1st Class William Knight, played several songs throughout the assembly and even answered questions from the school’s band after the assembly was over.
How did this unusual event come to be? Earlier this year, Staff Sgt. Jason Bemis, a trumpet player with the I Corps Army Band, was assigned to write a short report about Murphy, an Army bandsman during the Civil War and a recipient of the Medal of Honor. All Bemis expected to do was gather information about his accomplishments and present it to the band’s noncommissioned officer in charge, Sgt. Maj. Adam Hefflefinger.
Instead, Bemis began a process that culminated in the I Corps Band doing something which, as far as they know, no military band has ever done before.
Hefflefinger assigned each NCO to do a report on one of the 32 Medal of Honor recipients who were military bandsmen, Bemis said, and he was to write about Murphy, a musician with the 127th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War who earned the MOH for actions at the Battle of Ezra Church in 1864.
In his research, Bemis found a web site for Robinson B. Murphy Jr. High School.
“I thought it would be neat to contact the principal and get some background; maybe they had some information I couldn’t find,” Bemis said.
So Bemis emailed school principal Brent Anderson, told him what he was doing and asked whether the school was named after the same person he was researching.
Principal Anderson replied that the school was indeed named after the MOH recipient, who was a Plainfield native, and gave Bemis the background information he wanted. What he also gave Bemis was an opportunity for something new.
“He emailed me that he was going to have this event in May and he would need a person to participate or the band to participate somehow. I told him ‘Well, us actually flying there would probably not be possible because of sequestration,’” Bemis said.
“The principal said he actually wanted us to participate and we could probably do it over Google or Skype so I emailed my sergeant major and asked what he thought,” Bemis said.
“I can’t tell you what I actually said when he [Bemis] told me about this, so to paraphrase: I was stoked,” Hefflefinger said.
“This is actually a real nice thing because it’s the first, as far as we know, of any band supporting an event over Skype,” Bemis said. “I think bands have broadcast concerts over the Internet, but actually participating in an event over the Internet… as far as we know, this is the first time it’s ever happened.”
“This could actually lead the way to bands being able to support more events that normally we couldn’t because of distance or money or things like that,” Bemis said.
“In this essence, I think [Staff] Sgt. Bemis, as a Trailblazer, did blaze a trail for future ceremonies and events like this to take place,” Hefflefinger said.
Staff Sgt. Bemis’s simple report led to what was quite probably the first time an Army band has played a live event over the Internet. And that is why in the world a school assembly in Illinois is mentioned in a story about JBLM.
| Date Taken: | 05.09.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 05.12.2014 17:44 |
| Story ID: | 129563 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 169 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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