♦ "Once we got ourselves through the initial growing pains of the late forties, every year was pretty much a good year, but if I had to choose five seasons that particularly stand out in my memory, I would say that the first was 1958, mainly because of the spectacular job the corps did in winning the Legion Nationals at Soldier Field in Chicago. It was an extremely close contest and almost everybody thought the Syracuse Brigadiers had won, but in the end, we squeaked by to win. It was also an important year for the sport of drum corps competition in general, as there seemed to be a feeling that the whole thing was emerging and gaining in popularity. The contest were getting bigger and better, and the crowds were growing larger. We were always right up there, competition wise, but of course, we weren't alone. Just some of the great corps we competed against in the mid to late fifties were the New York Skyliners, the Reilly Raiders from Philadelphia, the Princemen from Malden, Massachusetts; Archer Epler from Upper Darby, Pennsylvania; the Hamilton Post from Baltimore, the Syracuse Brigadiers, the Skokie Indians, and many others; tremendous corps that we very much enjoyed competing with. Sadly, only a couple of those corps have survived and are still in actual competition today. Many lifelong friendships were established during that period with members, directors and instructors from other corps, and it seems to me as though the drum corps 'fraternity' was forged during the fifties."