June 6th

[jhockin]

June 6, 2020, the 76th anniversary of D-Day

https://www.facebook.com/NormandyMTr...8389366439073/

[imrichmond]

There is a lovely commemorative 12/8 march for the pipes written by Capt. Stuart D. Samson, the current director of the army school of piping, and titled "The Sixth of June, 1944". This march was played by the massed pipes and drums at last year's Edinburgh Tatto, marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, and can be heard in the videos of that event.

[OC Richard]

EDIT: here is Captain Samson playing his tune The Sixth Of June 1944

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPz1b9Fxbis

He is such a great piper. He did a nice long interview on Piper's Persuasion which I found very informative and entertaining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5yuqL0z8Ek

I felt in an odd way as if I was following his entire career. I have an old album of the Queen Victoria School pipe band and he's the Pipe Major, already taller than the other boys.

He was a young Pipe Corporal in the Gordons when I saw them on their 1987 North American tour.

Here he is as Pipe Major playing a lovely solo during the regiment's last years before amalgamation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS1o2LjhPBw&t=64s

In any case my family has been commemorating the anniversary of D Day by watching Band Of Brothers. My wife and my son have never seen it. We all need to see it.

My father-in-law, sadly no longer with us, was an Infantry Officer in WWII. He said Band Of Brothers was the most realistic WWII film he had seen.

[kilted redleg]

Just to get everyone up to date here is the last three including the current director of the Army [British] school of bagpipe music and highland drumming

Captain Stuart Samson (The Highlanders), 2003–2007
Captain Steven Small (Black Watch), 2007–2016
Major Gordon Rowan (Royal Regiment of Scotland), 2016–


Samson took a well deserved retirement in 2007. I don't know if he still is but was working at the National Piping Center [NPC]. I think he also plays with the Scottish Power PB.

[Brian Rose]

June 6th is our anniversary. My wife claims it was chosen because, as an historian and consumer of military history, it was a date I wouldn't forget. I contend that it was the first Saturday available in June. As the deed was done 39 years ago, it's kind of a useless argument these days.
We had three members of our congregation who made the trip across the channel. I spoke to one of them, asking about the miniature ribbon on his lapel. I guessed poorly. "It's a Silver Star" he told me quietly. I was in shock for a very long time. Such a quiet man. He was the last of the three to pass. One of his hospital nurses became his wife.