The pipes are calling: bandsmen blow, squeeze and wiggle their way into tiny fraternity marked by historical significance

Citizen Airman, Dec, 2004 by Jason Tudor

Airman Sandy Jones stood on the grassy hillside waiting for a cue. He had lingered with fellow members of the Air Force Pipe Band--frozen by cold wind off the Potomac River--since late morning. They were preparing to sound a single tune.

"Mist-Covered Mountains," a 107-year-old Scottish dirge, waited. The song's author, John Cameron, took the music from "Johnny Stays Long at the Fair," appropriate for the body nearing the plot at Arlington National Cemetery.

Given different circumstances, 24-year-old Airman Jones might have chosen something other than the song picked by the pipe major, Tech. Sgt. Melvin Ross. Perhaps the one he had written just months before; the one for the fallen American leader approaching on the flag-draped caisson rolling toward him. Its title?

"President Kennedy's Welcome to Sean Lemass."

Musicians with the Air Force Pipe Band, now an offshoot of the Band of the Air Force Reserve at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., share history and experiences with players like Mr. Jones that reach back six decades. Being in the Pipe Band, which traces its roots to the Air Force Drum and Bugle Corps of the 1950s, is different. Just ask those who've played the Bolling AFB, D.C., officers club cocktail parties for chiefs of staff and marched through Moscow's Red Square playing "Scotland the Brave."

Drawn together by the love of a common instrument, this isn't a band confined by the cinderblock walls of its Middle Georgia headquarters or the half-life of an assignment. Military pipers are connected. Once a Pipe Band member, always a Pipe Band member. They are more like former members of the Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team. Fittingly, the T-Birds and the band have similar goals: influence the community, keep the troops happy, recruit, retain and tell the Air Force story.

Master Sgt. Scott Gunn personifies that experience. He started playing oboe the same year John Lennon played his final concert and The Ramones played their first. He's served as an Air Force bandsman for 20 years and can just as easily strike a tune on tenor saxophone, English horn and Irish Uilleann pipes. Playing the Highland pipes, however, is what really gets him excited.

During an afternoon practice, he hauled the pipes to his shoulder like a drill team member's rifle. He pressed the blow-pipe to his lips and exhaled, filling the blue-and-yellow bladder with air. With a squeeze of his left arm, he played. Sound honked out of the three pipes, called drones. His fingers danced across the holes of the chanter creating the melody. Meanwhile, his foot tapped, his eyes closed tight, and his thick cheeks ballooned with air to refill the bladder.

It's an effort. After just 20 minutes, beads of sweat covered Sergeant Gunn's face and neck. His arms hung fatigued. He gulped from a bottle of water and played on. After nine years of this, he's won his share of Highland games piping competitions at Grade 4, or entry level.

Entry level or not, he's piped President George W. Bush, President Clinton and others out of the Capitol rotunda on St. Patrick's Day--with some nagging questions along the way.

"The president is two feet behind me, and I'm thinking as I'm playing, 'Do I speed up? Do I slow down? What's my sound like? I just hope I'm not leaving him behind,'" he recalled.

He didn't. President Bush later praised the band for its musicianship. A compliment from the president. Being in this band is different.

Airman Jones remembered the Army general's orders: "Mist-Covered Mountains" had to start the moment pallbearers lifted President Kennedy's casket from the caisson and stop when they reached the plot.

The pipers worked on it individually and then played it together in the parking lot of Arlington House, former home of Robert E. Lee. When the band finished practice, the players headed off to a diner for some coffee and donuts, returning at 10:30 a.m. Then, they waited--for three hours. The downtime led to a concern.

Airman Jones and other members of the band were hoping their instruments would still be in tune.

They would find out when the pallbearers lifted the casket.

Playing the bagpipes, let alone tuning them, is not a source of instant gratification.

Potential pipers will sink between $1,200 and $4,500 into a set of Highland pipes. Then, they should be prepared to sit down three to five hours every day practicing, only to enjoy solo performances some two to three years later, according to even the most optimistic instructors.

The attrition rate for the 6,000-year-old instrument's suitors is only slightly lower than the rate for those training to become Air Force pararescue specialists. If 10 potential pipers go into a classroom, just three will leave as players.

Wannabe Band of the Air Force Reserve members can't "just play the pipes." As the organization's Web site notes, this is a secondary instrument. The band has four permanent and five "augmentee" players. Augmentees are volunteer pipers from the active and Reserve corps. To put together a "bare-bones" pipe band, Sergeant Gunn needs five to six pipers, two snare drummers and a bass drummer. For more elaborate ceremonies, "10 is perfect" for pipers, with three snare and one bass drummer alongside.