(Robin Pogrebin’s article appeared in The New York Times, 11/10.)
His musical pitch, vocal range or favorite aria did not come up much when B. R. McDonald, a tenor, was kicking down doors and jumping out of planes in Iraq and Afghanistan as a member of the Army’s Joint Special Operations Command.
“At 12,000 feet, the last thing you’re going tell somebody is: I was an opera singer,” he said.
Mr. McDonald, who has a vocal performance degree from the University of North Carolina and sang in an a cappella group — the Clefhangers — put that side of himself aside during eight years in the military.