8 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY APRIL 30-MAY 6, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com 831 The Presidio of Monterey stirs slowly at this early hour. Cars trickle through the gates. The base—140 acres of coastal California, home to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center and one of the last active military installations in the county—holds its breath. Beside a flag pole, where a small group of soldiers stand, sits an old cannon on a wooden-wheeled carriage, a relic presiding over a ceremonial field where graduations and changes of command unfold under open sky. Then comes the signal. “Reveille”—from the French réveillez, “wake up”—is a military call that dates to medieval times. Its purpose has always been the same: rouse the sleeping, mark the dawn. “Everybody on base should stop and face the sound,” says Cameron Binkley, command historian at DLI, his eyes tracking the sun as it clears the ridge. “And if you’re driving, you should stop and flash your lights.” The soldiers assigned to this rotation—drawn from all branches, the DLI language students—move through the ritual with quiet precision. As the American flag climbs the pole in one swift, fluid motion, “To the Color” plays across the base. Personnel in uniform snap to attention and salute. The day has officially begun. For civilians living in the neighborhoods surrounding the Presidio, the three daily signals—”Reveille” at 7am, “Retreat” at 5pm, “Taps” at 10pm—are a kind of civic clockwork. Some find them orienting. Some find them puzzling. And many, eventually, pick up the phone. The most common question, fielded patiently by Public Affairs Chief Noah Rappahahn, is always the same: Is the music live? “It’s a recording,” he explains—and then he waits. There is almost always a pause on the other end. Disbelief. Because the sound does vary. Some mornings it carries clear and sharp across the bay; others it seems to drift, diffuse, half-swallowed by the air. The explanation is simple, if slightly atmospheric: weather. The angle of the wind, the density of the fog rolling in off Monterey Bay, the way sound carries through cold marine air. The Presidio controls the system. The volume is not adjusted. Nature does the rest. The tradition of recorded bugle calls stretches back to World War II, when live buglers—once essential to military life—gave way to the practicalities of scale. Binkley isn’t sure exactly when the last bugler played at the Presidio. Fort Ord, nearby, once had a full military band and its own buglers. Now there are speakers and recordings, and the same calls echoing across hundreds of bases worldwide. But the calls themselves have centuries of history. “Retreat,” played at day’s end, traces its origins to the Crusades and later the French Army, where it signaled that fighting had ceased and sentries should begin challenging anyone who approached. “Taps,” the final call at lights-out, honors the fallen and closes the military day with a gravity that a recording does nothing to diminish. Long before bugles, armies relied on fifes and drums—not for ceremony, but for survival. In the Revolutionary War, verbal orders were useless in the chaos of battle. Drum beats ordered troops to strike tents. Specific fife-anddrum combinations told soldiers when to fire, advance or fall back. The bugle eventually supplanted them, its clear, carrying notes better suited to directing cavalry and infantry across open ground. Sound, in other words, has always been a tool of command. The speakers at the Presidio serve a second, more mundane function: They are part of the base’s emergency alert system, tested regularly, as anyone in the surrounding neighborhoods knows well. Every morning when the flag goes up, it is joined by a second flag—the black-and-white banner of prisoners of war and those missing in action. It rises without fanfare, without explanation, a quiet companion to the Stars and Stripes. The sun is fully up now. The soldiers fold away their ceremony and return to the business of the day. The flag snaps in the coastal wind. Somewhere across the bay, the sound is already fading. The base is awake and Monterey— military and civilian—is ready for another day. Wake Up Call The signal of a new day can be heard across Monterey every morning, carrying on a tradition. By Agata Popęda “Everybody on base should face the sound.” TALES FROM THE AREA CODE PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY PUBLIC AFFAIRS Every morning, soldiers at the Presidio of Monterey unfold and fly the American flag. The brief ceremony is punctuated by a recording of the bugle call, “To the Color.” GET TICKETS! PRESENTED BY TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2026 7:30 AM - 9:00 AM FERRANTE’S AT MONTEREY MARRIOTT TICKETS: $45/MEMBERS • INCLUDES BREAKFAST QUARTERLY BUSINESS INSIGHTS BREAKFAST Join us for an informative presentation titled “Current State of Healthcare in the Region” with Montage CEO, Dr. Mike McDermott.
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