Guitars for Servicemen Serving In Afghanistan

One day whilst on ​Cigar Box Nation a message was posted, upon reading it I decided to contact the guy. It seemed quite appropriate as it was in the run up to anniversary of September the 11th and more importantly the unveiling of the memorial to all whom had died in the atrocity. The soldier (who remains anonymous) was serving in Afghanistan and was enquiring about a possible “donation” as he was the musical director for his battalion as well as fighting in a war zone.

Building The Guitar

I duly obliged and decided to start building him a guitar. I posted pictures on the website showing the progress and I would receive very nice comments about what had started as a plank of wood being turned into an instrument, but for me it was much more.

Here was a guy I didn’t even know fighting for our freedom and he was thanking me. “WOW, shouldn’t that be the other way around” I thought. Anyway some six weeks after I had started the item it was ready for testing, being left handed myself and the guitar was right handed I proceeded to take the guitar to my local music shop and get the guitar tech to sound test it, he put it through a Fender amp and plugged it in, it sounded awesome. ​Click here to listen to the first sound test of the guitar on Youtube.

It was then ready to send to the soldier – four anxious weeks later it arrived and I was pleasantly surprised to receive a wonderful email from him which was short and sweet (he couldn’t write too much as he was so excited to have received this guitar and wanted to play it) that meant so much to me. I had made a difference to his life and I didn’t even know him.

One of the American marines who acquired one of my guitars whilst on duty in Afghanistan.