U.S. Military Academy Hellcats

This group of 12 buglers and rudimental drummers traces its origin to 1775 with the Continental fifers and drummers that Minutemen brought with them to West Point.

Although the fife and drum were the first instruments at West Point, the bugle followed shortly after. Army commanders preferred the bugle's bold, brilliant sound and used it to give camp and battlefield commands. During the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the War Between the States, the drum was the primary source of battlefield communication. Throughout the day, it signaled various orders and its steady beat kept the rhythm for road marches and troop movements.

The Hellcats' main mission today is to provide musical support to the U.S. Corps of Cadets. In addition to sounding reveille and retreat at the garrison flagpole, the Hellcats play for marching drills, military reviews and parades. Each weekday, they provide martial music as the cadets march into the mess hall. As the football season brings the annual Army-Navy game near, the group's arrangements of traditional West Post gridiron songs fan the Army fighting spirit.

Hellcat buglers and drummers also have the sad task of performing muffled drums and taps during West Point funerals. Annually, a bugler plays taps at the tombs of presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Franklin D. Roosevelt on the anniversaries of their deaths.

Pride, intense espirit de corps and a sense of historical continuity inspire the distinguished service of today's Hellcats. With their precise marching, embellished by the twirls of silver bugles and intricate rudimental drumming, the group delights thousands of spectators each year. The Hellcats have been featured on NBC's ``Today Show.'' ABC's ``Good Morning America,''

``The CBS Morning News,'' and ``Live With Regis and Kathie Lee.'' They have been warmly received at military tattoos in Atlanta and Hamilton, Ontario. The Hellcats were honored in 1994 to participate in the parade of Allied troops as they left Berlin, Germany, for the last time.

Equipped with instruments designed and hand-made specifically for them, the Hellcats enable the United States Military Academy Band to maintain faithful renditions of traditional American military music, and day by day provide the Corps of Cadets a piece of living history.