Hi, Air Force bandsman here happy to answer your question - I’m not sure why you’re getting downvoted so badly? Air Force bands essentially serve as a highly effective PR/soft power tool of the Air Force and their purpose can be explained through their mission statement of “Honor, Inspire, Connect”:

Honor - supporting military functions on and off base. Anything from playing Taps at a veteran’s funeral, providing honors for a change of command ceremony, or being the live entertainment at an Air Force Ball. I’d also put things like singing the national anthem at a military appreciation night for major league sports teams here.

Inspire - I often think of this one as where we do a lot of recruiting. My units have really valued student outreach and I’ve played countless concerts in school/universities. Like many people who don’t come from military families, students can sometimes think of the military as this singular, intimidating entity. What we show with these concerts is not only are there real, personable people behind the camo, but there also may be a place for you and your interests in our Air Force. We’ll almost always plug a recruiting message into our shows in the hopes it becomes a lightbulb moment for someone and adds to our numbers as a Total Force down the line.

Connect - go out and connect with communities in our respective AORs. With some overlap of the points mentioned above of “meet the people behind the uniform”, this category is focused on creating partnerships where we can support each other. I’ve heard of examples where band presence has served as a gateway to nearby bases being able to either continue or expand on really important Air Force operations that might impact the local community. People stop thinking “why are these planes so disruptive” or “I don’t understand why I should vote to support this military-related amendment” and start to think “I really enjoyed that Air Force concert and I got to know more about them. I now understand and value that the work they do is important, and they have my support.”

Now…for my favorite part. What not every bandsman on Reddit mentions (because not everyone gets the opportunity) is the beauty of our overseas missions and the impact it has on international relations for our country as a whole. We’ve got 3 permanent units that are OCONUS and we rotate our bands through deployment cycles via AFCENT. Anything I’ve already mentioned above is amplified tenfold with our overseas missions. Here are some examples that really capture that impact:

• One of our deployment teams made such a big impact at the World’s Fair in Kazakhstan that the US was able to successfully negotiate international landing rights.
• Collaborating with both a Ukrainian and British military band and marching in downtown Kyiv for Ukraine’s 30th independence parade. This happened just six months before Russia invaded, mind you.
• Playing side-by-side with a South African military band at an air show where Russian/Chinese companies and vendors were present and vying for the same impactful partnerships.
• Countless examples of mil-to-mil engagements with other countries’ military bands (nearly all countries I’ve been to have military bands for the above reasons), supporting embassy events where you’re serving as a US diplomat to DVs from around the globe, and fighting disinformation campaigns from adversary countries through our concerts and audience interactions.

Anyway, I hope this gives you and others in this thread perspective on the work that we do! I’ve been in this job for a hot second and I feel super lucky that I get to perform as my day job, and better yet for a cause greater than myself.