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Happy Birthday, Truman Crawford


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Colonel Truman W. Crawford was commander of the United States Marine Corps Drum & Bugle Corps from 1973-98. "Tru" died in 2003 at a hospital in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Charismatic and exacting, Colonel Crawford was credited with transforming "The Commandant's Own," based at the historic Marine barracks at Eighth and I Streets SE, into a professional organization and a spectacular recruiting tool that blasted audiences the world over with a rousing wall of sound.

"We were pretty much a bunch of hack musicians before he came around," said the bugle corps' current commander, Major Brent Harrison.

Colonel Crawford's influence extended well beyond the Marines. At points in the 1960s and 1970s, virtually every championship drum and bugle corps in the country was playing one of the hundreds of arrangements he made.

Colonel Crawford became enamored of the form as a high school student in his native Endicott NY, where he heard a performance of the U.S. Air Force Drum and Bugle Corps. Shortly after graduation in 1953, he auditioned for the group and was accepted as a baritone bugler. In short order, he became the corps' musical director and senior noncommissioned officer. But the unit was disbanded in 1963, and he moved to Chicago and directed the Chicago Royal Airs, a nationally-ranked junior drum corps, and to run a music store.

He continued to arrange and consult with civilian drum and bugle corps. Based on his reputation, he was asked to join the Marines in 1967 as a chief music arranger. During his tenure there, he jazzed up the playlist with show tunes and other popular music, and instituted a "slide-and-glide" style of marching that was a cool display of military efficiency. He also was influential in persuading manufacturers to produce bugles with two valves instead of one, allowing a greater range of notes.

Rangy and bespectacled, Colonel Crawford was a picture of ease when he was directing, seeming to will the music out of his scarlet-clad troops as he rolled back and forth on his heels. He performed before nine presidents, many of whom he knew on a first-name basis.

In 1979, he was given a scant two weeks to prepare a performance at Camp David, where Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin would have a diplomatic breakthrough. Recalling the experience in a 1997 interview with the Baltimore Sun, he said that the first words out of Begin's mouth after the performance were, "What a marvelous art form."

When he retired, he was the oldest Marine on active duty. He became the musical director of the Baltimore-based Yankee Rebels Senior Drum & Bugle Corps, known nationally for its showmanship and musical innovative style.

He also was inducted in 1979 into the Drum Corps Hall of Fame and had received the top honors of Drum Corps International and Kappa Kappa Psi, the national honorary band fraternity. He was a volunteer in the music programs of the Washington Metropolitan Boys Club, a coach of the Capital Boys Hockey Club and an official with the American Amateur Hockey Association. Until ALS made it impossible, also played in a senior hockey league.

Edited by Navillus WP
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  • 11 months later...

Its been 10 years since we lost Dad. It still hurts.

LOL I was just cussing out God this morning as a matter of fact.

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Its been 10 years since we lost Dad. It still hurts.

LOL I was just cussing out God this morning as a matter of fact.

can't believe it's 10 years...

Cindy, you don't need to cuss out God... your Dad's taking care of that for all of us...

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here's a taps for you my friend......always on my mind

Jim

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