Marine Corps…
I grew up with the appreciation of music in my home. My dad was a district music teacher. He taught 4th-8th grades. My dad was turned off though from Music Education due to Administration problems in his district (I’ll talk more about the problems of Arts education, and education in general, in these United States.) He had way too much to handle for any one person. He came home at the end of the day (usually around 7pm) mentally and physically exhausted not wanting to talk about music with any of his family.
My dad’s best friend Bill Hawkins played the Trombone. I was enamored with it. He helped me get my first Trombone, which I played in my school band from 4th grade until my senior year of high school. But I didn’t really think that I would become a professional musician. I knew I definitely didn’t want to go into education from seeing only my Dads viewpoint growing up. I did however have the need to serve something larger than myself. I found what I had been looking for in the Marine Corps. They had everything that I had been searching for. Their motto sempre fidelis or always faithful said it all; service, loyalty, God, country Corps. I wanted it. So, with my parent’s permission, in the summer of 1988 I enlisted in the Marine Corps, I was 17 years old.
After a year of training for Infantry, I made it to the Marine Corps Band in Camp Lejuene, North Carolina. It was only for a short time though. President Bush and the Coalition had set a deadline for Saddam Hussein to retreat from Kuwait by January 15, 1991. In preparation for the worst, I was called back early from my family home on December 26, 1990 to go to the Middle East, destination unknown.
Sometime in late January or early February a defining moment in my life took place. I had just stood watch from 0100-0400 (1-4am) and had already been awake for more hours that I remember. I laid my head down for what seemed to be a fleeting second when all of a sudden someone was shaking me out of my sleep. I look up to see what looked like a Darth Vader figure above me. In a muffled voice I hear him say “Wake the f*** up! Wake the f*** up! Bolin!”, we were under attack. The figure, as well as all others around me was wearing what is none as a “MOP” suit. This was a suit that fit over one’s Camouflage clothes, plus a gas mask, and thick rubber gloves and boots. I was in another world. It was a surreal dream, one, which I didn’t know, was real or not. It was real. As I was helped into my suit by the Darth Vader figure (Lance Cpl Mellange, my friend) all outside senses shut down. A darkness came over me. My ears seemed to get smaller and smaller. In crept this eerie organ music. This is a music that I had never heard before, and I’ve not heard since. A large pipe organ played the tune of the end of the world. While I was sleeping, a warning had been sounded. Iraq had fired SCUD missiles in our direction carrying an unknown agent, usually a nerve gas or biological chemical which would end our lives quickly, but in an unhuman and painful way. This was my turning point. This, where so many men and women gathered hatred toward those we were fighting, is where I began to change my outlook.
I spent the next 5 months in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait not knowing what was to come next. It was here where I started to question some basic philosophies in my life like; the hatred of a people that I knew nothing about, life in service with no ability to make decisions of my own, if life is always spontaneous and re-inventing, shouldn’t I also be creative?
I grappled with these questions for the next few years, and by 1993 I had come to many decisions, which were a 180 degrees from where I had been just a few years before. I still stood firm on two things that had been important to me growing up, music and the need to serve something larger than myself. These fused together for me. My life, music, service, creativity and an expression of my very essence. I knew I had lived a life thus far that I could share with others in performance as well as education. You see, music has helped save me from a life of murder, hate, racism, and no-thinking. This is what I want to share with others. Not only do I enjoy the expression that music affords me, but, I want to help others to this form of expression as well. And I want to help children who don’t have the opportunity to learn within the arts to have that opportunity.
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