Spirit of America

My husband and I took our 8 year old son and 12 year old daughter. The show was AMAZING!! We all 4 enjoyed oursleves.

This is a very talented group of performers and dedicated US Army soldiers. The show is amazing for adults but, I disagree with taking young children to see it. The first Act is a historical reenactment of battles fought through our history. We took our 7 year old daughter and her friend thinking that they would be enjoying marching, drum corps and learning patriotic music based on the commercials, ads and online video clips that I viewed. It would have been a great experience if we could have stayed through the first Act in which war scenes from the American revolution to the current war were shown on a big screen, machine gun fire and a bomb being dropped was dramatized in the first 10 minutes and soldiers shot at one another on stage and toward the audience. We stayed through the Civil War( the first 45 minutes of the show )and regretted staying that long. For a child who has not yet gotten a basic history lesson in school and who has not watched much news on TV, these images were overwhelming and confusing. As a patriotic American, I was disappointed that there was nothing in the ads, video clips for the event etc to warn me of the content of the beginning of the show before I ordered the tickets for my children to attend with me. I would have attended this event and enjoyed it fully with my husband and other adults however, this is a family event only if your children are Middle School aged and older in my opinion.

The Spirit of America show gave me goosebumps!!! The war reenactments were informative with exciting crescendos. There is something for everyone. The PRECISION of the drill team, the orchestra, fife and drum corp, the marching band and the singers and actors were the only give away that this had to be nothing but Army Strong. This is incredible, never before seen, multi-dimensional entertainment. Truly the best of the best.

This show was amazing. Please go and take your kids. They will love it. What a great way to talk to them about our country's history. Thanks, Army for putting this together.

My wife and I really enjoyed the show. It is nice to have events like this in Grand Rapids. I hope to see more in the future.

A truly inspiring show at a spectacular venue! The Consol Energy Center is fantastic. The show started with a review of the history of the U.S. Army with active duty soldiers depicting momentous occasions in period uniforms. The uniforms were exceptional, included were the War for Independence, Civil War, WW I, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq. The U. S. Army Band played throughout the evening and the music was very, very good. The pace was excellent with no pauses in the performance except for a 20 minute intermission. Including the intermission the show was 2 hours and 45 minutes long and started exactly on time. At one point a number of male and female soldiers sang solos of classic rock songs, the music was great and the voices were even better. The U.S. Army Drill team exhibited why they are the best with an exact and precise performance with bayoneted rifles. I had never seen them live and is was spellbinding. I was very impressed with the magnitude of the show especially considering that it was only being performed in three cities during this run. A huge amount of work went into the planning and timing of the performance. Towards the end of the show every era of soldier was represented in period uniforms in a great finale, superb. The final act was a comical performance by a number of soldiers mimicking the U.S. Army Drill team as the U.S. Army Broom Team. Brooms and bodies were flying everywhere. A lighthearted end to a great evening. Thank you goes to Consol Energy Center for hosting this free show and a huge thank you to those in the military who put the show together and performed in it. The Spirit of America should be shown in many, many more cities!!!