A native of
Endicott, New York, Truman Crawford performed in a local
fife and drum corps from the age of eight. He gained rapid promotion, becoming the unit's senior
non-commissioned officer and musical director. As
Glenn Miller had done with the Army Air Force Band during
World War II, Crawford transformed the unit from a staid,
martial music unit into a swinging, contemporary musical ensemble before the corps was disbanded in 1963. Leaving the Air Force after the drum corps' demise, Crawford moved to
Chicago, where he went to work in a music store. He continued to write arrangements for drum corps, many of which he had begun his involvement with while in the Air Force. He worked especially closely with the Chicago Royal Airs Drum and Bugle Corps, which in 1965, playing Crawford's arrangements, became the only drum corps to win the
American Legion,
Veterans of Foreign Wars, and
Catholic Youth Organization National Championships in the same season. By 1967, Crawford was credited with writing arrangements performed by a great majority of the senior and junior drum and bugle corps in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Due to his reputation and popularity in the drum corps world, in 1966, Crawford was asked to join the United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps as chief musical arranger. At the time of his retirement in 1996, Col. Crawford was the oldest Marine on
active duty. During his early years in the Marines, Crawford was also the
drum major and musical director for the Yankee Rebels Senior Drum and Bugle Corps from
Baltimore, Maryland. This corps won the American Legion Senior National Championship in 1969, 1970, and 1971. When the Royal Airs was resurrected as an alumni corps in 2002, he returned to that corps as musical arranger and sometime conductor. Crawford was diagnosed with
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) (Lou Gehrig's disease) in 2002 and died at a hospital in
Hershey, Pennsylvania from the effects of that disease on March 3, 2003. He was interred at
Arlington National Cemetery, and was survived by his wife of forty-nine years, Lucille Ellis Crawford, five children, eight grandchildren, and four siblings. ==Honors==