This post was penned by freshman color guard member, Scarlett Forster!
The military has always been a special topic to me. My father was a member of the United States Coast Guard for around 23 years, and even after retiring, he’s stayed involved and kept in touch with dozens of people he’s met over the years. A military father meant packing up my life every couple years and moving somewhere totally new. It meant being stripped of everything you’ve known and being plopped into a place completely foreign and sometimes even scary.
This feeling was all too familiar to me moving into Virginia Tech this year. Once the top of high-school, the apex predator of the food chain, now nothing but another lost freshman wandering around campus with Google Maps up. I woke up morning after morning disoriented in my environment, terrified of my classes, of all the syllabi, of all the exams.
My solace quickly became marching band. The last game, we had hundreds of highschoolers with us, and the entire game was spent making sure they felt special and ready for the performance! But without 600 highschoolers, I realized that next game, it was my time to shine. It was my first full length performance in Lane, drill and choreo and all. And beyond the adrenaline, I was terrified. The prior game had been my chance to learn. Now was the time to perform.
September 12th was our Military Appreciation game against ODU. The show was my chance to use halftime to give some love and respect to my father and all of the other people serving actively or retired in the military. I was ecstatic!
As well as the theme, the guard was spinning the entire show on swing flags, a smaller pole than our traditional 6ft paired with an extremely wide and light flag that allows for more smooth and artistic spinning. I love swing flags, and the choreo we learned for the show truly highlighted their elegance.
The trombones are hype on the way to the March to Victory! Photo credits to Grant Erickson
Our morning rehearsal was brief, yet productive, and followed by our pregame concert and electric March to Victory! You could feel the excited energy from the crowd as we marched into the stadium, still hype from the 73-3 win the week before!
But what truly set the day apart was the halftime performance. The overcast weather had nothing on us! We performed Colors, an armed forces medley, and Stars and Stripes Forever with grace, and the band surrounding me sounded unbelievably beautiful the entire time. When I left the field, I could hardly contain my smile. The halftime show had gone perfectly for me (despite the strong impending wind that started up right as we began to spin!) and I felt an incredible pride towards the MVs and my fellow colorguard.
The guard and their swing flags at halftime. Photo credits to Katie Sabo
Honoring my father through our halftime show while he was in the stands watching was an incredible special experience for me, and I will look back on this game fondly for a long time. The familiar feeling of loneliness and unfamiliarity I had experienced in all my military moves and now move on had become quelled by this incredible group, the most welcoming group I had ever become a part of.
Finally, the game ended with another Hokies win, 44-21! With a final Tech Triumph, we wrapped up another exhilarating gameday in the Marching Virginians!
Thank you to all who are serving or have served, and the families alike. Your sacrifices never go unseen! Go Hokies!
