infrared concordances...

Recently, I attended an Army retirement ceremony at Fort Myers.  The 3rd US Infantry Regiment, better known as the Old Guard is the elite drill and ceremony unit at Arlington Cemetery.  (Parades and other rituals of symmetry still hold my attention.)  I stare at the coordinated movement and the changing formations, and the world seems to dissolve away...much like each soldier's individuality at that same moment.

As my dissolutions were punctuated with harmonies, I learned that the elite infantry regiment also includes a musical component, the US Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps.  They too marched, but instead of rifles with bayonets...they played their 10-hole fifes, their handmade rope-tensioned drums and their single-valve bugles.  The wigged musicians treated our ears to 18th Century tunes, and for a short while...

I wondered if all conflict could be settled with melodies and marching.