By Hillary Travis
Special to powhatantoday.com

You learn something new every day.  Sometimes, it’s a lifelong lesson that will benefit you for years to come.  Sometimes it’s something you wish you had never even known.  But nonetheless, learning is a great thing.  Furthermore, as they always say, there is no better place to learn than in school (what else does it exist for, right?).  Perhaps, however, it is those strange bits of knowledge you gather in unexpected places that are the most treasured and that truly stick with you.  Case in point: the United States Navy.  Several times a year, representatives from the Navy (as well as from the Army, the Marines, and so forth) visit Powhatan High School with recruitment information and free pencils.  Oddly enough, on Friday, May 2 (a day that will now surely live in infamy), this was not the case.  Instead, the Navy representatives entered the school wielding guitars.  Yes, guitars.  And microphones.  Speakers.  Drum Sets.  Keyboards.  You get the idea.

I didn’t really know what to expect.  Several students were aware that we were having an assembly, at which the Navy would be playing music, but the most information I heard was that they would be playing flutes, trumpets, and things of that nature.  In other words, it wasn’t building up to be a very exciting assembly.  As we all piled into the auditorium, the seats were set up with surveys resting on top and bags of Navy goodies scattered from place to place.  The stage was set up with stacks of speakers and instruments fit for a grunge rock band, which was perhaps the only sign that this wasn’t going to be your typical “join the Navy” advertisement.

The first step in making yourself at home in such an environment is to tear open a goodie bag, of course.  As students played with their Navy lanyards, temporary tattoos, and whatnots, we all came across these strange trapezoidal containers.  This is where irony plays out to the most extreme degree: the Navy had supplied us with the single most humorous party favor, given the situation.  When squeezed from the center, the trapezoid boxes popped open to reveal a pair of earplugs resting inside.  An ironic item to pass out at a music concert – from any point of view, these people were setting themselves up for ridicule.

When things calmed down and the men on stage had situated themselves, one of them stepped up to the microphone and took a breath.  Waiting for “In the Navy” to start resounding throughout the entire auditorium, I was stunned into silence (and an eventual giggle) when he began belting out “Let the bodies hit the floor!  Let the bodies hit the floor!”… not quite what I was expecting.  Nor what anyone else in the room had anticipated, as judged by the overwhelming number of jaws that were dropped to the floor, from wall to wall. 

“Not quite what you were expecting, was it?” is all the lead singer had to say when the song ended.  Indeed, it wasn’t. 

Confusion by the thought of a concert put on by the Navy made my mind wander to an old episode of The Simpsons, where Bart joins a boy band.  In one of their songs, several women continually repeat the phrase “Yvan eht nioj” in a catchy way, and it makes people flock to the naval recruitment center.  Now as far as I could tell, there were no subliminal messages packed into the songs the band at PHS played, nor did I feel the urge to run out and joint the Navy.  The strongest desire I felt was the urge to jump up and dance as the band pumped out popular tunes, from “Party Like a Rock Star” to an old Journey favorite.  Each song was executed to noteworthy excellence, and the concert turned out to be a highly pleasant (though endlessly unexpected and shocking) surprise.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of high school students get so involved in a school assembly (especially during the Michael Jackson covers), nor has one been talked about so much.  It looks like we didn’t even need those earplugs after all (though mine are still kept handy for future use).  Even the Blue Angels were interesting, as they showed us a video of some airplane flights and discussed their life experiences, and why they had chosen to join their branch of service.  I guess the assembly couldn’t have been entirely un-educational, could it?

So like I said, you learn something new every day.  What did I learn?  Well, everyone has their own set of talents.  When you think of the Navy, odds are you picture a bunch of men in sailor suits, working for a greater cause and striving to make the Country the best it can be.  What people tend to not think of is that these men have lives outside of the services, too – some might be world-renowned chefs, others might be better artists than Picasso, and there are some who could have even been rock stars, but instead, they chose to take a more honorable path.  Though I am no more interested in joining a branch of service, such as the Navy, in my lifetime than I was before the concert assembly, I did find a greater respect for these men and women who serve our country day after day and the people who they are deep on the inside.  I also realized that some of the best assemblies Powhatan High School has held were those which featured live music, such as a pep rally in 2004 where a group of students (formed into a garage band known as “Socially Below Standard”) played for the entire school, or the AIDS benefit rock concert held by the GSA last year. 

I guess all I can say is that PHS rocks.  Literally.