Music's past helps shape Soldiers' lives

Photo By Staff Sgt. Miguel Rivas | Capt. Robert Crandall, Company C, 204th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division physician assistant, works alongside the chaplain to coordinate music for Sunday services. Crandall began playing the Beatles on the guitar as a boy, and today, he finds solace in playing Christian music  

ISKANDARIYAH, IRAQ

01.07.2009

Story by Staff Sgt. Miguel Rivas 

2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

By Staff Sgt. Miguel A. Rivas
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infanty Division

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq – Capt. Robert Crandall is more than a night-shift physician assistant for Company C, 204th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division.

Crandall leads the worship at Forward Operating Base Kalsu's contemporary service. He works alongside Chap. David S. Dennis, coordinating music to accompany the chaplain's Sunday message.

Crandall enjoys playing guitar, a skill he learned as a boy, and says that playing is a way to bring calm into his life. He likes the blues, which helps him process life's daily stresses. He lists blues icons Monty Montgomery, Tommy Walker and Eric Clapton as his musical inspirations.

"Blues represents a style. It is a style with simple messages about the ups and downs of life. It is a way to relate to life," he said.

Crandall wasn't always a follower of the blues; back in the day, he was a Beatles fan.

When he was young, Crandall was mesmerized by his brother's "White Album," by the Beatles. Obviously not the first fan to feel the pull of the "Fab Four," Crandall's devotion to the songs on the album resulted in a demise of sorts.

"I listened to 'Black Bird' over and over. I grabbed a guitar and played a couple of notes, hundreds of times, until I ruined the record," he said. "I put it back [in his brother's room], but he figured out that I learned to play 'Black Bird' by using his record."

Crandall and his guitar have made it quite a distance, including this trip to Iraq.

Twenty-three years ago, Crandall walked into a guitar center in Santa Ana, Calif., and purchased the guitar that he still uses today. He paid a modest $750 for the Guild guitar; the same instrument that would fetch as high as $2,000 today.

"I haven't [named the guitar], but we have been through a lot together," he said.

The solace Crandall finds in his music and in playing the blues is surpassed only by his work now with the chaplain.

"The blues will make you feel better for a while, but listening to Christian lyrics; those words are things you can hang your hat on," said Crandall. "There are truths that do not change; I have learned to give thanks to our Lord, our God and King. His love endures forever, and that truth never changes."

• Date Taken: 01.07.2009
• Date Posted: 01.07.2009 12:41
• Story ID: 28562
• Location: ISKANDARIYAH, IQ