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The pipe band looked to Drum Major Clint Wagner for direction into position during each performance.
THE SOUND CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33
erald Society played old Irish and Scottish anthems “Garryow- en” and “Bonnie Dundee” while exiting the Memorial.
Rain ricocheted off the snare drums and beaded down the pipes, but the rhythmic sound of the band went uninterrupted. Not even a monsoon could rain on their parade.
“We’re the police,” Harmening stressed. “We go through when it rains. When somebody calls, we go. This is for our own.” Once the band competed its set, the 31 members were given permission to disband. But instead of running to their nearby hotel, many felt motivated to continue the march. Those who stayed back made up a 10-player parade, sounding the music again and marching through the streets of D.C. even though the
rain refused to quit.
They gained an audience along the way and even an addi-
tional bagpiper from Pittsburgh as the tunes echoing through the streets drew civilians to the windows and into the doorways of storefronts they passed. Crowds formed under restaurant awnings to take videos and cheer.
For those who attended Police Week, the message of this monsoon march was clear. The host band certainly was per- forming to its high standard, responding beyond the line of their duty, performing all day and all night, arriving first to each event and exiting last, playing through the aching feet and ex- haustion, providing the bassline for remembrance and raising the volume way up on Police Week to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
“That’s where you set the tone,” Harmening noted. “It’s not in what you say, it’s what you do. They will always know that when we were the host band we stood our ground and we honored our fallen.”
On tour
The Emerald Society band members knew what they signed up for in 2016 when requesting to be the National Police Week host band for this year. Whenever the National Conference of Law Enforcement Emerald Societies (NCLEES) selects an affili- ated band to be the leading chorus for Police Week in Washing- ton, D.C. each May, it’s a multi-year commitment.
The band’s first assignment was to attend Police Week the year prior to observe and play alongside the Los Angeles Police Department Pipes and Drums that hosted during Police Week 2017. Many officers in the Emerald Society band made the trip last year to complete the prerequisite and get an idea of what to expect when it was finally their turn to take the lead this year.
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Katie Negley (right) experiences the emotion of Police Week’s Candlelight Vigil for the first time.
The band booked an official schedule of performances for a packed three days of honoring the fallen. Of the 75 members of the CPD Emerald Society Pipes and Drums band, 31 committed to make this trip to Washington where they would make an un- forgettable impact on blue hearts from across the nation.
“There’s a lot of responsibility involved with being the host band,” noted John Sullivan, a longtime CPD officer who has played with the band for seven years. “It’s very humbling and exciting. We hope to make everybody proud.”
From performing for family members of fallen officers at the Candlelight Vigil to a day full of performances, from play- ing at an NCLEES morning ceremony to welcoming the arrival of the Philadelphia Police Law Enforcement Memorial Run to Washington D.C at the Memorial, from jamming at the Annual Emerald Society Memorial March on that rainy evening to cul- minating Police Week with a morning performance on the U.S. Capitol steps at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service, the host band created the soundtrack of sorrow, remembrance, honor and celebration at Police Week.
But the official schedule hardly encompassed the band’s be- hind-the-scenes efforts to set the tone in Washington, like the Emerald Society’s midnight pipers who could be heard playing a solo, solemn set through the Memorial late each night. In many ways, it was the events not listed on the host band’s per- formance schedule which loudly signaled the Emerald Society’s mission to go above and beyond the set list to honor the fallen.
“It’s kind of like the Super Bowl of what we do,” stated Robert Reilly, a retired officer who has continued to serve by being a part of the band for the past 12 years. “We honor the fallen all year with performances, but doing it on a national level is phe- nomenal.”
The girls and boys in the band
Traveling lightly from Chicago to Washington, D.C. was im- possible with uniforms, drums and bagpipes for 31 band mem- bers. To cut down on the cost of checking such heavy equipment on a flight, Harmening, Wagner and other pipe band veterans rented a truck and took shifts driving the band essentials to the nation’s capital.
But it wasn’t about the journey, process and planning that it took to get there. This time, it was about the destination, and each member, all parts rookie, veteran, male, female, on the job and retired, carried their own story that connected them to this prideworthy experience as members of the host band.
Megan Aylward, who is with the Deployment Operations