First Friday - July 2004

Musician Plays Different Tune at Summit

Story by Sgt. Jeff Lowry
124th MPAD

One instrument, a flute, is for making beautiful music, the other, an expandable baton, is for making people see musical notes. For Staff Sgt. Marcia Kimbrough, a flutist with the Guard’s 116th Army Band and an Atlanta police officer, both are the instruments of her profession.

During the 2004 Global Eight Economic Summit Kimbrough traded her flute for that baton and helped protect public property, mainly a Savannah hotel, as a member of Atlanta ’s finest. She was among the thousands of Georgia Citizen-Soldiers and civil law enforcement personnel to participate in the G8 security mission.

“Since I’ve had the Mobile Field Force (MFF) training, I felt I was obligated to help the best way I know how,” said Kimbrough while checking identification badges at a Savannah River ferry landing. “That turned out to be not in BDUs but in Atlanta PD blue.”

Kimbrough, a 12-year police veteran and an instructor at the department’s training academy, said there’s never been a conflict between her civilian employer and the Guard. The police department is always behind her 110 percent, while the Guard and the band have done the same, she said.

While the MFF’s stationed in Savannah and Brunswick were created to quell any civil disturbance that might have happened, their special skills were needed only a couple of times. Her expertise, however, was necessary on a full-time basis as the eyes and ears of the U.S. Secret Service, she said.

While radically different than her civilian job, she relishes being a band member, Kimbrough said.

“It gives me more of an artistic outlet, something to do away from my job as a police officer,” she explained.

Kimbrough said that, when she enlisted in the Guard in 1988 she had no plans to join a band, but was hoping to get into a military intelligence unit. A recruiter, though, changed her mind after looking over her resume. Kimbrough attended a performing arts based high school in Atlanta .

“I didn’t become a Guardsman to play, but I’m glad I did,” she said. “Our unit is like a family, each of us looking out for the other.”

She added that she also likes the fact that she can be promoted without leaving the band

“I can stay with the unit and continue my progression up through the ranks,” Kimbrough said. “We have members who’ve been there for 32 years, and I, too, plan to stay with the unit as long as I can.

As it is with many Guardsmen, the 34-year-old staff sergeant juggles a military career, a civilian career and a family life. Her husband, Hakim, is also an Atlanta police officer and a member of the Marine Corps Reserve.

With their lives already as busy as they can be, and raising two children, 12-year-old Hakim and five-year-old, Taylor, it will soon be even busier, she said. That’s because her husband is scheduled to deploy to Iraq in the near future.

Even Reservists need reserves, Kimbrough said, and that’s where her family will fill in.

“My dad was career military, and has always been there for me. With my husband about to leave, it’s good to have the kind of support I know I’ll get from him and the rest of my family,” she said.

Though the careers might seem to clash at times, there’s never been a dispute between the two according to Kimbrough.

Whether she’s playing the flute or patrolling the streets in police blue, Kimbrough said she’s always been happy doing both. She enjoys being a civil servant in both respects, she said, it’s just a change of the tools she uses to accomplish the mission and the uniform she wears that make the two different.

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