Today, they perform 50 or more times in an average year, throughout the Southeast and overseas in places such as the Azores Islands, Norway and the Dominican Republic. The members are traditional guardsmen, in that they perform one weekend per month and attend a period of annual training each summer.

The band will perform all ceremonial music at this year's celebration here, including the National Anthem, Amazing Grace, America the Beautiful, Salute to the Services and others.

They will also perform a concert of patriotic music immediately following the ceremony at about 9 a.m. until about 10:15. "Actually, one of their leaders told me they'd play as long as people wanted to listen," said Gaddo. "They're excited about this event."

The full concert band can break up into specialized groups to play styles such as big band, jazz, Dixieland or rock. Spectators will be in for a unique experience.

The public is invited to the Memorial Day celebration, beginning with band music at 7:30 a.m. at the VFW Memorial at City Hall Plaza in Peachtree City. A golf cart procession starting at the Gathering Place and going around Lake Peachtree to the Plaza will also be open to the public to join. Coffee and donuts will be served at the Gathering Place at 7 a.m., and the procession will begin promptly at 7:30. Participants are encouraged to decorate their carts in a patriotic motif.

There will be honors to the flag, a reading of the top winner in the student essay contest, and other pageantry. Among the added highlights is Bob Hardin, the first and only director of the Georgia Information Sharing and Analysis Center (GISAC). Hardin will be the guest speaker where the homeland security theme is "Secure the Hometowns, and We Secure the Nation."

Hardin recalls when he first got the call about GISAC, an operational clearinghouse of terrorist-related intelligence information, in October 2001. At the time, Hardin was head of the State Drug Task Force, the GBI unit responsible for statewide undercover narcotics work.

"I got this call one night at 10:30 from now retired Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Deputy Director of Investigations Roy," recalls Hardin. "He was being very elusive about why he called."

Hardin was prepared for the worse, fearing his boss was going to tell him an agent had been hurt or killed.

What the boss told him took him totally by surprise.

"He said he wanted me to take charge of GISAC," Hardin says. "I asked him what the heck was a GISAC." The boss explained that he needed Hardin to head up a terrorist information gathering and dissemination unit, and the rest is history.

On October 25, 2001 Hardin started the job with no staff, no budget in the middle of a state budget year, a broad mission statement and only a vague concept of what his newborn organization was to become when it grew up.

"But I knew this was something serious when the director of the GBI told me I could hand pick my entire staff," says Hardin. "That just doesn't happen every day."

With a background in undercover narcotics work and advanced police training, Hardin fell back on his experience to form the unit. He began his law enforcement career in 1974 as an East Point Police Department patrol officer. A year later he joined the GBI and is nearing 30 years with them. In that time he has worked as a special agent in undercover narcotics, general criminal and narcotics smuggling. As a supervisor, he managed units responsible for general criminal, organized crime and narcotics investigations.

"At first I figured GISAC would be an operational intelligence unit and I would be looking for people with backgrounds in field investigations and strong interviewing skills," he recalled.

He soon found out it was much more than that.

He began to learn about the contemporary nature of terrorist-related intelligence information, about its sources, its importance and about who needs it when. He found that following terrorism leads requires walking a tight rope between operational effectiveness and infringement on civil liberties.

"We have to be careful to protect peoples' rights, but at the same time aggressively follow potential terrorist threats. It's not an easy thing to do," he said.

The GISAC headquarters in Atlanta houses an Intelligence Operations Center (IOC) that can be activated in a terrorist related emergency anywhere in the state. Known as the "war room," it becomes the nerve center in a crisis.

"It is the induction point for truckloads of information coming in during an operation," said Hardin. "Our protocol is to send agents to the incident site, and they become our primary connection to the incident. As information comes into the IOC we analyze it, determine its importance and send it on to where it's needed. Depending on the incident, we can have people from the Department of Transportation or the Department of Public Health to the Department of Natural Resources or the EPD," said Hardin. "They are our subject area experts who help us analyze information relevant to the incident and get specific information to the incident site commander."

In spite of the innate complexity of the mission, the underlying principle at GISAC is simple. Bottom line, stressed Hardin, is that in today's world, "Homeland security is everybody's responsibility."

The Memorial Day event is co-sponsored by Peachtree City VFW Post 9949, the Peachtree City Kiwanis, and the City's Leisure Services Division. In case of inclement weather, the event is held at First Presbyterian Church directly across Willow Bend Road from City Hall. For more information on the event, contact the Recreation Department at 770-631-2542. ?

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