FORT SILL, Okla. -- When the Fires Center of Excellence Pipe Band, also known as "Costello's Own," played at the dedication of the First to Fire Room in Snow Hall Friday, they built on the legacy established by Air Defense Artillery at Fort Bliss.
BRAC 2005 moved the ADA under the FCoE and with the consolidation, the 62nd U.S. Army Band and its bagpipers ceased to exist.
Chief Warrant Officer Michael Franz, 77th U.S. Army Band commander, offered to take the bagpipes as a way of preserving the history of this part of the ADA culture. Though bandsmen are professional musicians, they had neither the training or the time to take up learning a very difficult instrument to master.
Originally the bagpipes were to be displayed somewhere on post to honor the person who began the group in 1996: Lt. Gen. John Costello, then Air Defense Center commanding general at Fort Bliss. However, because the two artillery branches now share one band, the FCoE band, Franz said ideas began to circulate of resurrecting the pipers to represent the entire FCoE.
When Costello came up for the St. Barbara's Ball in 2009, he received a VIP briefing from Staff Sgt. Robert Fortune, now the pipe major and instructor of Fort Sill's bagpipe band.
"He was giving me the hairy eyeball like he knew me from somewhere," said Fortune.
Later when the two spoke, Costello recognized him as one of his first bagpipers who joined the ADA pipe band in 2000. That meeting inspired Fortune to see if he could help form a pipe band at Fort Sill.
Ultimately, various meetings and discussions led to the creation of the pipe band furthering Costello's legacy and establishing it as an entity under the FCoE.
Because Scottish tradition considers bagpipes an instrument of war, pipers came from the ranks not the band. Over the next year as interest in the pipe band gained momentum, Franz met Fortune and learned of his 12 years experience playing the instrument.
"I didn't think there were any pipers left from that band, and I didn't have any idea how to play them or teach others to play," said Franz. "I can say without a doubt if he wasn't here we wouldn't have any bagpipers now."
By early April, the six Sill brigades sent Soldiers to the band to learn to play the pipes. Fortune oversaw 50 days of training turning some Soldiers with little or no musical training into polished pipes players. The brigades' six pipers are Fortune, 31st ADA; Sgt. Charles Riggs, 75th Fires; Spc. Matt Woodworth, 428th FA; Spc. Stephen Painter, 214th Fires; Spc. Fred Quinn, 434th FA; and Sgt. Joshua Reed, 6th ADA.
Franz said the pipers will serve a one-year special duty assignment, then be replaced. Though there were some concerns that teaching Soldiers to play in 50 days was a bit too ambitious, he said their results suggest otherwise.
"This is proof that at the core we're all Soldiers, and the one thing Soldiers have in common and do is excel at their mission," he said. "Something even as complex as learning to play the bagpipes in 50 days they've made happen; it's a testament to Soldiers in general. They can accomplish anything.
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