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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Time now for StoryCorps' Military Voices Initiative - recording and sharing the stories of service members and their families. Today, a love story that began in a military band. Since the Revolutionary War, America's military bands have entertained troops who were deployed far from home to play at funerals for fallen veterans and to march in celebration after battle. Air Force veterans Linda and Mark Green came to StoryCorps to remember how they joined the band at the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD. They were trumpet players, and it marked the start of their musical careers and their romance.
MARK GREEN: When I was in high school, my parents thought, you need to go to college. But when I was in class, all I did was get sleepy. My band director told me, why don't you get into the Air Force band?
LINDA GREEN: I had a lot of difficulty finding a trumpet teacher who would accept a female student. In the '70s, there weren't many women trumpet players.
M GREEN: Girls were expected to be on flute, clarinet.
L GREEN: And so I also had to be better in order to compete with the boys. But eventually, I was the first female trumpet player in the NORAD band.
M GREEN: Yeah.
M GREEN: When our first sergeant told us that you were coming, he got all the guys together, and he said, there will be no swearing. There will be no mistreating. There will be no disrespect of this young person.
(LAUGHTER)
L GREEN: Well, you guys minded your P's and Q's, let me tell you.
M GREEN: We were very good, and everybody liked you.
L GREEN: I remember, we flew in C-130s, which were horrible because they didn't have restrooms. They had a hole in the side of the plane for men, 'cause the planes are built for men, period. So there were, like, three females in the whole band. And we learned that we'd have to get those big giant cups at 7/11 because they...
M GREEN: I didn't know that.
L GREEN: ...Were long flights. Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
M GREEN: How did you first notice me as anyone you would like to know?
L GREEN: I looked down the line, and I saw those hazel eyes, and I thought, (vocalizing) he's really cute (laughter). But I heard you play the solo, and your trumpet sound won me over.
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M GREEN: I was very shy. I'd never had a steady girlfriend before. I might have just turned 20. And we were playing a concert in a high school in Denver, and I saw you looking at me. I looked in your hazel eyes, and I thought, wow.
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M GREEN: That was a moment just etched into my brain just like the day that our daughter was born. I think I finally asked you out the next day, and I said, have I got a deal for you.
L GREEN: Yeah.
M GREEN: I didn't have a good opening line.
L GREEN: No, you didn't.
M GREEN: I didn't have any pickup lines.
(LAUGHTER)
M GREEN: But then the first time we kissed, I knew that I was going to marry you. I've been happy for more than 45 years since then.
L GREEN: I know it, 'cause it's gone by really fast.
M GREEN: It has. And there's a lot of great years to come for us.
L GREEN: Yeah.
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SIMON: Mark and Linda Green for StoryCorps in Anchorage, Alaska. And the music you just heard was performed by the NORAD band. This interview was recorded in partnership with Alaska Public Media and is archived at the U.S. Library of Congress.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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