The 4th Infantry Division Band of 1968 had four performing groups.
These groups sometimes played performances together but also traveled
individually. The smaller groups like the Folk could more easily
travel to remote fire bases than could a larger group of 30 or more
men and their equipment. Members of the band, and the other groups,
did perimeter guard duty, engineer details, participated in a number
of "Sweeps", patrols from time to time, convoy guard duty
and "house keeping" duties like KP and Charge of Quarters
and such. The 4th Inf. Div. Band still exists and has been deployed
to Iraq at least twice. Due to the danger of traveling in large
groups, today most performances are done with smaller ensembles.
Although mp3 files are smaller I have posted these recordings in
wma format because the quality of the original tapes wasn't good
and the tape had aged by the time I converted it to digital. The
tape recorder used was a Sony 355 with two mikes and no mixing was
available. The power supply was usually a diesel or gasoline powered
generator that caused significant voltage fluctuations. None of
our venues had studio quality acoustics. The Bandmaster was the
late CWO Arthur Durham.
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