Leslie and I got a call from a producer at Planet Grande Pictures who was making a documentary for CMT. They wanted me to write and perform a blues song about the airplane bone yard. I only had six days until Leslie and I were to go to the airplane bone yard in Tucson to meet a film crew that was coming in from California so we got busy.
As we were on our way to Tucson we got a call from the producer saying that the plane with the film crew was running late. The Davis Monthan Air Base folks had only given us one hour to have access to the bone yard so the Planet Productions folks had arranged for us to film at an airplane restoration business that had their own bone yard.
They filmed me for three hours including an in-depth interview and my performance of my new blues song, ""Buried in the Bone Yard Blues,"" plus they had me do a lot of free style harmonica playing. It takes me weeks to memorize a new song and as we only had six days to prepare, Leslie made me big Q-Cards with a verse on each one so I was able to simulate that I knew what I was doing. They had me standing beside the carcass of an old C-130. It turns out that I had flown in C-130s seven times while in the Army, but being a paratrooper I had only landed in one of the seven planes.
The documentary will show on CMT on September 30, 2005 and re-run after that. The producer told me that the documentary should have a long shelf life of three to five years. (That means it will be aired many times.)
The producer and film crew were all very nice folks and really got into what I was doing. On the way home as we were almost to Phoenix a car honked beside us and it was the producer and film crew in their rental van headed for the Phoenix Airport to fly to Reno to interview some Special Forces guys. They waved hello and then got behind us and filmed the back of our car going down the freeway for about fifteen minutes. I am very proud of my Purple Heart license plates that say ""3 TOUR"" but the plate segment didn't make it out of the editing room.
Sarge on Country Music Television (CMT)
See cmt.com for future showings
Show: Small Town Secrets
Episode: Cowgirls, Combines and Commandos
This episode of CMT Small Town Secrets features the private armies training in Hawthorne, Nev.; the Redneck Games of East Dublin, Ga.; the strong women known as the American Cowgirl Chicks in Weatherford, Texas; the fighting tractors of the demolition derby in Lind, Wash.; and a graveyard for airplanes in Pima County, Ariz.
Leslie and I got a call from a producer at Planet Grande Pictures who was making a documentary for CMT. They wanted me to write and perform a blues song about the airplane bone yard. I only had six days until Leslie and I were to go to the airplane bone yard in Tucson to meet a film crew that was coming in from California so we got busy. 
4/2/2014 7:09:34 PM