Photo By Staff Sgt. Crystal Housman | U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Eric Suganuma, bandmaster of the California Army...... read more read more
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by Master Sgt. (CA) Gregory Solman
California National Guard Public Affairs
JOINT FORCES TRAINING BASE LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. – The prelude to the 42-year military symphony of now retired 40th Infantry Division bandmaster Chief Warrant Officer 4 Eric Suganuma was a discordant but suggestive note. Suganuma’s high school counselor—also serving as an officer in the Army Reserve—called Suganuma into his office and told him his grades were so awful, he’d “better join the Army, because you can’t do anything else in life,” Suganuma recalls.
A year later, by 1976, the counselor’s prophecy had come to pass. Suganuma enlisted in the 25th Infantry Division, based in his native Hawaii, as an active-duty trumpet, trombone, and euphonium player—as well as a bugler, company clerk, and music librarian. After active-duty, Suganuma enlisted in the Army National Guard’s 111th Army Band, stationed in Diamond Head, Hawaii. His hope was to just make it to 20 years.
That plan, Suganuma now reckons, was 11 division commanding generals, 18 uniforms, 99 Army Physical Fitness Tests, 50 states and 23 countries ago. In the coda, when he ceremoniously handed the guidon last December to his successor, newly minted Chief Warrant Officer 2 Christopher Fossmo, Suganuma’s once modest vision of playing trumpet for an army band swelled to a Bachelor of Education in music from University of Hawaii, a master’s in Instrumental Conducting from Fresno State University, and 16 years of command. Along the way, he’d traversed the era of all-male bands, served with the last of the Women’s Army Corps soldiers, and watched musical styles and military cultures come and go.
“It’s amazing how the culture in America has changed since enlisting, from being called a ‘baby killer’ after blowing ‘Taps’ at a military ceremonial gravesite burial as a PFC, to today, when you walk into a coffee shop in uniform, and people want to buy you a cup of coffee,” Suganuma chuckles.
Along the journey, Suganuma had confounded even more expectations than his own. That high school counselor who’d brusquely pushed him toward the Army reunited with Suganuma again during his Primary Leadership Development Course, this time as his commandant. Suganuma was a year away from graduating University of Hawaii, and sporting a 3.85 grade point average. “The major was very surprised,” Suganuma says.
As a bandmaster, Suganuma became a proponent of that heralded Glenn Miller/Army band traveling tradition and re-harmonized its meaning to the modern soldier. “Nobody makes friends like the band can,” he insists. “You give us 90 minutes, and they’re our friend. Our commanding generals have considered our mission here essential: To put, and keep, a good face on America, and keep the public behind the military.”
Suganuma and his bands accomplished that through hundreds of appearances in parades, at military and civic events throughout California and beyond, and in annual crowd-pleasing performances before thousands of spectators at the division’s home base, each 4th of July. (As a retiree, Suganuma plans to check out his neighborhood block party this literal and figurative Independence Day—the first time he hasn’t been on duty for the Army since 1976.)
Throughout his military education as a bandmaster—complemented by Suganuma’s civilian job as director of bands and choir at La Viña Middle School, Delano—the emphasis shifted to “keeping & placing a good face on America…we were meant to represent not just the soldier, or Division, or the State, or the Army, but our country, the United States of America.”
Suganama takes it in stride that traditional marching band music associated with military bands is sometimes out of sync with modern soldiering, such as occasions when the 40th ID band has dutifully appeared at troop returns, only to be told the preference is to substitute dark, heavy metal booming from loud speakers for the assembled formation.
“The mantra is, play the music the soldiers want to hear,” Suganuma explains. “For example, there is an active duty rock band, ‘The Four Horsemen of the Arockalypse’ [a heavy metal group drawn from an Army band]. And some of our soldiers have played in rock bands, on the ground in Iraq. The troops would come around, sit down and say, ‘Man, this is real music. I can forget about that firefight I was just in.’ ”
“Our band has soldier/musicians from all walks of life,” Suganuma says. “We’ve have everything from studio-quality musicians to players just out of high school.” Sugunuma figures that the most famous 40th ID band alumnus is Cubby O’Brien, a professional drummer who started as a cast member of the Mickey Mouse Club in 1955.
“I’ve always liked fundamentals, ever since I read [Green Bay Packers coach] Vince Lombardi’s book how he emphasized fundamentals,” Suganuma says. “I thought, if I can give these kids the fundamentals, for the rest of their lives they can blow a horn. But in middle school, you only get so much musical satisfaction; so on the other side, I get to work with a professional Army band and the high standard of music I like.”
Teaching Suganuma the fundamentals of Army advancement took some doing, too. His former bandmaster/commander had to implore him three times to put down his trombone and become a warrant officer. Suganuma resisted, to the point of telling the commander, who’d asked him to think about it, even pray on it, “No, I will not. I don’t want the job!” Suganuma recalls. “But when I got home, I felt the nudge, God was saying, ‘You take the position, and I’ll bless the band.’ In the end, it turned out to be the best job I never wanted.”
What kept Suganuma motivated as he moved up—from section leader (1991), to Enlisted Conductor (1998), to Acting Commander (2001) and, finally, Commander (2002)—was that he “liked being around these folks, all these soldier/musicians, a great bunch of folks to work with, very unique. It’s a culture I really like. I loved doing this, whether it was blowing on a tuba, or conducting, working on soldier skills, or the administration of it all. I enjoyed it.”
In the end, Suganuma was grateful to hand the baton to CW2 Fossmo, a longtime woodwind player and group leader in the 40th ID Band. “It’s difficult to find a soldier that has the skill-set, mind-set, and heart for this position. He’s going to do a great job. I’m so thankful that he decided to apply for this job, graduate top in his class, and dedicate himself to this amazing unit. This unit is going to reach and achieve standards not yet seen or imagined with his leadership.”
Suganuma plans a reprise of sorts for his retirement, getting his chops up to play the trumpet—his first love, since the seventh grade—again. And he also hopes to get back in shape on his trombone, euphonium, and tuba too. It’s been a common refrain for him since then: “If it’s music in any form, I’ll do it. If it ain’t music, why do it?”
| Date Taken: | 02.21.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 02.21.2019 17:16 |
| Story ID: | 311524 |
| Location: | JOINT FORCES TRAINING BASE LOS ALAMITOS, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 303 |
| Downloads: | 4 |
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