Legion’s Band Warmly Greeted by Muscovites

An American Legion band didn’t get to march through Red Square as planned, but the musicians did strut down Marx Prospect on Wednesday, drawing hugs, kisses and cheers from Muscovites celebrating Victory Day.

Bandleader Dorothy Hill, 74, a Coast Guard veteran, brought the 70-member band from American Legion Post 156 in Waltham, Mass., on a mission of peace.

Hill said that band members had originally been led to believe by Soviet officials that they would be the first U.S. band to play in the main Victory Day military parade through Red Square celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany.

But after the band arrived in Moscow, the Soviet Peace Committee, which is organizing their visit, kept changing the Americans’ schedule, and finally they were informed that they wouldn’t be able to march in the Red Square parade.

No explanation was available for the change in schedule.

Instead, the band had to settle for taking part in another Victory Day parade in downtown Moscow of marching musical units from various Soviet republics.

And the Americans proved to be a crowd favorite.

As the band marched down Gorky Street and turned onto cordoned-off Marx Prospect playing “God Bless America,” traffic police gave up trying to control the crowds thronging after the Americans.

During “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” one woman in the crowd running beside the band shouted back “Slava! Slava!” (“Glory! Glory!”). Others gave the V-for-victory sign and waved their fists in a salute.

The band settled into seats in an open space next to the Bolshoi Theater for a concert, and a crowd of about 1,000 pressed around it so tightly that it had to be warned repeatedly to move back.

Soviet war veterans wearing medals repeatedly hugged the American Legion members wearing their military decorations.

During a one-hour concert, the band played “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Old Gray Mare.”

After the concert, the band members laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier who fell in World War II.