Senior Master Sgt. Gail Tucker's office is scattered with trophies and books stacked in haphazard piles where shelves used to be, as she prepares to shut down operations of the longest serving military unit in continuous active duty in Alaska, the Band of the Pacific.
Pointing to a white board with the names of her band members and their departure dates, she had already erased the names of three members who have left.
Her name is the last on the list. "It's going to be very quiet," she said.
What is lost in the band's deactivation is a mission to engage Alaska's diverse community, educating kids and an experience for band members that Tucker, a clarinetist, called "phenomenal."
"It's a shame to see this mission go away (in Alaska). It's unlike anywhere else that I've ever been, and I've been all around," she said.
The Band of the Pacific -- Alaska's only Air Force band -- first formed in 1941 and officially designated in 1943, has been deactivated due to budget cuts and its members reassigned across the U.S. The Band of the Pacific is a unit existing in three parts in Alaska, Japan and Hawaii. Tucker's unit reorganized a year ago, and it sent its entire jazz band -- 14 of the band's 30 members -- to be stationed in Japan, where she said there is a great appreciation of jazz music. Left behind were the rock band, "Top Cover," and "Alaska Brass," the brass quintet. Now, they've all been reassigned. Alaska Brass played its last show on June 1.
Although not related to the federal spending cuts known as the sequester, military budget cuts in the past several years prompted the Chief of Staff of the Air Force to reexamine where dollars were flowing, and cutting band positions was a part of that process.
No band members lost their jobs, but as they retire, their positions will not be filled again.
Now, the remaining members of the Alaska unit are clearing out the building where they've been housed for decades. They've taken down the historic photographs, cleared out offices, and their practice area is cluttered with instruments and music stands.
Still hanging on the walls are maps of Alaska, overloaded with pins marking where the band has played. From Deadhorse to Bethel, the band is well-traveled, an aspect of their Alaska assignment that has left a defining mark on the members.
"That's probably the saddest part" of the unit shutting down, Senior Master Sgt. Mike Williams said, "what gets lost in helping people (in rural Alaska)."
For Williams, the band's keyboard player, bringing live music to places that see few, if any, traveling acts, is one of the best parts of the job. "You go to some places and there will be forty people in the audience, but that consists of the village," he said.
Senior Sgt. John Rider, the band's tuba player, said being stationed in Alaska has allowed the band to "actually use your passion to communicate." Alaska's mission is community outreach, he said, whereas in the Lower 48, the focus is more in public affairs.
"I'll miss that a lot," he said.
Williams said he will also miss the "small-town feel" of Anchorage, a community which he said embraces the military more than any other place he has been stationed. In that way, the band feels they have a special impact in Alaska, more so than other states.
The band has been a defining presence in Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Valley for the past 70 years, starting from their very first unofficial show in 1941 at the first annual Matanuska Valley State Fair in Palmer. In past decades, the band played funerals routinely, toured schools every few months, and put on an annual holiday show in Anchorage where they played for upwards of 2,000 people. "That's something I'm going to miss," Williams said.
Another aspect of Alaska life that they will miss? The people.
"The people up here are real," Staff Sgt. Craig Matta, who plays French horn, said. "In the performing arts center, you could see someone wearing a tuxedo next to someone wearing Carhartts," a seemingly mismatched sight that Alaskans know well.
Contact Laurel Andrews at laurel(at)alaskadispatch.com