Command Sgt. Major Mitchell D. Spray (left), Dr. Charles Cureton, and Ms. Kathryn Condon (right) during the installation of the new statue "The Bugler" at the Visitor Center at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, on January 18, 2013.
Kathryn Condon is the Executive Director of the US Army National Military Cemeteries, and has responsibility for both long-term planning and day-to-day administration of Arlington National Cemetery and the U.S. Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery. A former IRS revenue officer, she joined the Army as a civilian management analyst at West Point in 1986. After stints at Fort Belvoir and the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, she joined the Management Directorate of the Chief of Staff of the Army in 1989. She was Acting Deputy for Program Analysis and Installation Assistance in the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army from 1994 to 1997. Moving into the Senior Executive Service (the elite ranks of the U.S. civil service system), she was the Special Assistant for Resources and Military Support (1997-2000), the civilian Deputy to the Commanding General of the Army Materiel Command (2006-2009), and Special Assistant for Planning to the Under Secretary of the Army.
After the Arlington National Cemetery mismanagement scandal broke in July 2009, Arlington National Cemetery superintendent John C. Metzler, Jr., was removed from his position on May 19, 2010. (Metzler continued to oversee burials and operations until his planned retirement on June 10, 2010.) Condon was named Executive Director of the Army National Cemeteries Program on June 10, 2010.
Spray was appointed Command Sergeant Major of the U.S. Army Band (“Pershing’s Own”) in September 2011. He is only the third Command Sergeant Major in the history of the U.S. Army Band. Prior to his appointment, Spray was Drum Major of the U.S. Army Band from 2001 to 2011.
Dr. Charles H. Cureton (USMCR, ret.) is chief of the U.S. Army Center of Military History's Museums Division. Cureton joined the Marine Corps in 1972 and was assigned to the Marine Corps Historical Center in 1983. He received his PhD in history from Miami University. (His dissertation was on the organizational development of the Virginia cavalry from 1646 to 1783.) Joining the Marine Corps Reserve, he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and spent the Persian Gulf War as a field historian with the 1st Marine Corps Division. He later was head of the U.S. armed forces history team sent to Somalia and Haiti. In 1997, he was appointed officer-in-charge of the Marine Corps Field History unit. He is an expert on Marine Corps dress. Before being appointed Chief of the Museums Division in September 1988, Dr. Cureton was director of the Frontier Army Museum at Fort Leavenworth and the 101st Airborne Museum at Fort Campbell.
The model for "The Bugler" was Staff Sergeant Jesse Tubb, a trumpet and bugle player with the Army Band ("Pershing's Own") Concert Band. He joined the Army Reserves while in college and performed with the 91st Division Reserve Band from 1996 to 1999, and with the 70th Division Reserve Band from 1999-2002. In 2002, he joined the United Stated Army Field Band. In 2005, he won a position with the Army Band (“Pershing’s Own”) Ceremonial Band for two years, then moved up to the “Pershing’s Own” Concert Band.
"The Bugler" was manufactured by StudioEIS, a statuary company based in New York City. A cast of Tubb's face and body was taken, and a fiberglass statue crafted. The statue was then painted and dressed with an actual bugle and US Army bugler's uniform.
The statue is the centerpiece of a new exhibit at the Visitors Center, "Honor, Remember, Explore." It is the first revision to the Visitors Center since it opened in January 1990. Previously, there was limited signage and some wall-sized images, but little else to orient visitors about the cemetery, what goes on there, and what it means. The new exhibit contains a limited number of artifacts (replicas of the Medal of Honor of each service, and the bugle played during President Kennedy's burial). Several computerized kiosks permit visitors to find where graves are located, discover the graves of famous people or high-ranking officers at the cemetery, learn about the monuments and structures at the cemetery, and more.
"The Bugler" is being installed 151 years after the tune "Taps" was first written. Also known as "Butterfield's Lullaby", the tune was composed by the Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield while at Harrison's Landing, Virginia, in July 1862. It is a variation on the tune "Scott Tattoo," a French bugle call that also signaled "lights out". The first three notes of any bugle call during the Civil War were unique to the general in charge. Thus, tfirst three notes of "Taps" are a sign to soldiers in Butterfield's units to that it is Butterfield talking to them via the bugler. Oliver W. Norton was the first bugler play "Taps". "Taps" was adopted by both Union and Confederate forces within months.
"Taps" was officially recognized as a military bugle call by the U.S. Army in 1874, and a standard component of U.S. military funerals in 1891.