A bit of history from Woodwind Forum moderator George Hostler that I found interesting and wanted to share with my readers.

Back in the early 1970’s when I was with the Hawaiian Army Bands, because the Arnold Brilhart (Rico?) mouthpieces were so inexpensive, our Band Supply room was always stocked with all sorts of sizes. We could freely try them out, if we liked one then keep it and put it to use. They were black with a diamond shaped white insert on top, of a softer plastic than hard rubber ones. Would last a while if one put a rubber teeth guard, but I never bothered. After time they’d developed heavy teeth marks.

Vietnam War ended in 1974. Army was drawing down strength. Our 264th Army Band, Fort Shafter, Honolulu was deactivated in Sept. 1974. Half the band got transfer orders to other bands. About 15 of us got orders to the 25th Infantry Division (ID) Band at Schofield Barracks army base near Wahiawa in the middle of the island, about 35 miles from Honolulu.

Chief Warrant Officer McKinney was elated that his band now was being influxed with good players. Because of the war few were enlisting for the 25th. He had a struggling rag tag band. First rehearsal, he now had a “real band”. We increased band strength to about 30 including leaders.

I was the ranking woodwind player, Specialist-5 (same pay as a sergeant). In WW2 we were called Technical Sergeants. This allowed one with technical expertise, say medical, electronics, band, etc. get promoted without leading a combat team. I was officially designated the Woodwind Section Leader. We had a rag tag group of 9 woodwinds: a flute, 5 clarinets and 3 saxes versus 5 trombones, 7 trumpets, 1 French horn and 7 percussionists.

I approached our enlisted bandleader, Sergeant Major Tamaha, suggested if he allowed me to rearrange our woodwind section to a saxophone choir, we could deeply improve the music mission in marching and stage band. After he approved, now we had 1 piccolo, 2 first altos, 2 second altos, 3 tenors and one baritone sax.

To increase our volume to punch through the strong brass, I convinced leadership to allow our supply sergeant to purchase Berg Larsen Metal mouthpieces. Since these were very expensive they were hand receipted to each of us. (Other mouthpieces were considered consumables, not accounted for unless someone abused the privilege – Army has ways to teach them.)

The clarinets and flutes play all the frilly stuff, but saxes oft carry the more important countermelodies in marches. General Brooks, the 25th ID leader and his staff became pleased as punch with the band’s new “full” professional sound that for the remaining time I was with them, they left the band alone. We got out of ammunition depot guard duty, painting buildings and yard work, kitchen assistant duty (KP – “kitchen police”), because our leadership told them that we could not have a band if these tasks took away musicians.

~ George Hostler

Around 1981 now with the 300th Army (Reserve) Band, Bell, CA while filling in for the Fort Ord Training Division Band (Monterrey, CA up north) during their July 2 week blanket leave (all take the same vacation time to keep their band intact), we traded in our fatigue uniforms for BDU’s (Battle Dress Uniform – with dark green, black, brown, light green blotches), supposedly better field cammouflage for I guess a European based conflict (vs. Russia).

With our new uniforms on, our bandleader, Chief Warrent Officer Peter J. Mittelstadt stood on the conductor’s podium for rehearsal. Then he exclaimed, “Where are you all?”