Stemming from the tradition of rallying troops and frightening enemies, mounted bands played a unique and distinctive role in American military history. Their fascinating story within the U.S. Army unfolds in this latest book from noted music historian and former army musician Bruce P. Gleason. Sound the Trumpet, Beat the Drums follows American horse-mounted bands from the nation's military infancy through its emergence as a world power during World War II and the corresponding shift from horse-powered to mechanized cavalry. Gleason traces these bands to their origins, including the horn-blowing Celtic and Roman cavalries of antiquity and the mounted Middle Eastern musicians whom European Crusaders encountered in the Holy Land. He describes the performance, musical selections, composition, and duties of American mounted bands that have served regular, militia, volunteer, and National Guard regiments in military and civil parades and concerts, in ceremonies, and on the battlefield. Over time the composition of the bands has changed—beginning with trumpets and drums and expanding to full-fledged concert bands on horseback. Woven throughout the book are often-surprising strands of American military history from the War of 1812 through the Civil War, action on the western frontier, and the two world wars. Touching on anthropology, musicology, and the history of the United States and its military, Sound the Trumpet, Beat the Drums is an unparalleled account of mounted military bands and their cultural significance.

This last volume of Lady Diana Cooper's memoirs covers the years of the Second World War and its aftermath, when her husband Duff Cooper served as Minister of Information and then in various diplomat posts around the world. We accompany the Coopers on their travels from the Dorchester Hotel during the breathless days of the Blitz, to a happy sojourn farming in Sussex, to Singapore and Algiers and eventual retirement to France, all told with Diana's unique perspective and enchanting style.

Soldier/scholar Palmer traces the history of the American involvement in Vietnam and shows how events in both the U.S. and Vietnam became inextricably linked as domestic dissent and a lack of realistic, viable military strategy ultimately led to America's first lost war. Index. 6 maps.

A 1920's training manual with both musical notes and adapted words to explain the calls, intended for the use of Trumpeters, Buglers and Instructors as well as for Soldiers to learn calls, especially Field Calls that were confusing due to their similarity, such as Stand Fast; Charge; Gallop; and Rally. A must for historical military re-enactment.