BlackFive

The US Army's Spirit of America is a visual and musical extravaganza celebrating the history of the Army by focusing on the stories of the Soldiers. It features several units of the Old Guard doing drill and ceremony and reenacting battles and such. Now these are some of the most disciplined troops and can maintain their military bearing about as well as the Beefeater guards over at the Tower of London. They do funerals and changes of command and pretty much every type of ceremony imaginable. They endure heat, rain and cold and stand stock still for hours on end. They hear the same songs over and over and over. If you have watched Gardens of Stone, you can get some idea of the gallows humor that keeps them sane while they do so.

But some things just go beyond the pale. Some tests of will and patience should never be tried. Some songs should neither be written nor sung. These Soldiers have done nothing to deserve the torture they are about to have done to them.

This year the Spirit of America show will close with a Barry Manilow song called Let Freedom Ring. Now it would be bad enough if it was Copacabana or even worse Mandy. But they have gone a step further and will be forcing members of the Army's Old Guard and the audience to listen to this egregious FrankenSong creation stitched together from trite phrases & mind-numbing non-melodies to create a metastasized, musical dogs breakfast. Each night they will bleed from the ears as the evil ear worm turns their brains to mush and forces their musical tastes to commit hara kiri. Back in the golden days of coercive interrogation when we weren't daintily dousing KSM and his pals, we were blasting them with heavy metal and the Barney song to break their will. But we refrained from using Barry Manilow, because that was inhumane.

This heinous & egregious outrage must not stand. The show's final format has not been fully approved. You can help and social media is the weapon for a preemptive strike.Tell them that the soldiers of the Old Guard have done nothing awful enough to deserve this torment.

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@theusarmyband

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