As a member of the U.S. Army Phil Becker proved there are multiple ways to serve.
For Becker, it was through music.
Becker’s tour with the Army Band included playing for military personnel returning home from overseas deployments during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“My fondest memory of those ceremonies was watching soldiers reunite with families. It was truly an awesome experience and made everything we were doing make sense.”
Becker addressed those gathered for Monday morning’s Memorial Day services at Highland Cemetery. As director of Iola City Band, he also led the morning’s musical offerings.
BECKER FOLLOWED the footsteps of his great-grandfather Carl Elbe, who “who played in the first ever U.S. Navy Band including performing on President Theodore Roosevelt’s yacht,” he said.
Other ancestors followed more traditional military routes including his great uncle Robert Elbe, an Army infantryman who was awarded two purple hearts for his service in the Korean War and his father, Gene Becker, who was a radar operator also in the Korean War.
Becker enlisted in the Army in 2002, serving in its military band at Fort Monroe in Virginia, as well as a reservist in Richmond, Va., until 2012.
Becker said he joined the Army for several reasons, including to “gain experience as a working musician, to take advantage of the Army’s educational benefits, and to serve my country.”
“Each time I meet a veteran, attend an American Legion meeting or get a chance to serve the community, I am filled with a sense of pride. Working with veterans builds a sense of community,” he said.
OTHERS participating in the picture-perfect day’s ceremony were Robert Nelson, master of ceremonies, the Rev. Dan Davis, who delivered the invocation, members from the Iola, LaHarpe and Moran American Legions and Veterans of Foreign Wars and their Auxiliary members, the 40 et 8, the Moran American Legion firing squad, Mike Jewell, who provided the sound system and Boy Scouts with Troop No. 55 who placed flags on all known veterans’ graves.
