Sergeant H’ Hits the Note of Experience

Sergeant H’ hits the note of experience
by Andrea Brown

Left, Norsia Harrison this month in his basement, where he records his material. He travels to civic and military events to perform his patriotic songs. I mostly do songs I write, with the exception of the national anthem and a few patriotic classics, he said. He calculated that he has traveled 50,000 miles to perform on stages from Washington, D.C., to California.

Norsia Harrison’s voice changes when he recounts his years in the Army: He belts out a song.

The 46-year-old disabled veteran writes and performs inspirational military songs.

He calls it patriotic-pop.

I got inspired when the war started, he said. It brought back memories. These are soldiers getting ready to leave their families. I know the feeling.

During his 16 years of active duty, he was an infantry squad leader, platoon sergeant, convoy commander and operations sergeant. He spent a year in the Persian Gulf and was deployed to Somalia. His awards include the combat patch, meritorious service medal, United Nations medal and air assault badge…

Harrison, whose stage name is Sergeant H, recently sang at the National Symposium for the Need of Young Veterans in Chicago, where his audience included young veterans recovering from major injuries in Iraq.

I received a standing ovation, he said. When they know someone has walked in their shoes, the talk has a different ring to it.

Harrison accepts donations to perform at schools, but military events are free. Sales of his CDs at shows and on his Internet site (www.sergeanth. com) help cover expenses.

I mostly do songs I write, with the exception of the national anthem and a few patriotic classics, he said.

He’s been dabbling in music for years but didn’t plan to pursue it to this extent. He figures he has traveled 50,000 miles to perform at stages from Washington, D.C., to California.

His local venues have included the Cripple Creek American Veterans Rally, the Fort Carson PX, the Peterson Air Force Base PX, the Memorial Day celebration at Memorial Park and the Fountain-Fort Carson ROTC Ball.

One of these days I’d like to go to Iraq and Afghanistan to perform, he said.

He uses a boombox background with music he recorded.

It makes it easy. I put the CD track on. Give me a microphone and I just go, he said.

Harrison is uninhibited in emotion when he performs, whether it’s before a few visitors in his basement studio or a few thousand.

He says it’s because he takes off his glasses so he can’t see the audience.

I hear him sing all the time, but when you hear him perform . . . it’s like I’m seeing him for the first time, said Lucia, his wife of 27 years.

They have three children, ages 16 to 26. Their 24-year-old son is in the Air Force.

Harrison’s music studio shares the downstairs of their Constitution Hills home with his wife’s beauty salon.

She said her clients like the background music. Many have spouses who are deployed.

They get inspired by my husband’s music, she said. Sixteen years in the military with three kids, you can kind of feel what the wives are going through.

Lucia is more than his sounding board.

I helped him write one song Unsung Heroes Too to the families waiting for their loved ones to come home, she said. I was reliving some of that.

He feels grateful to the Army.

He was a 17-year-old high school dropout in Detroit when he joined.

I was looking to get off the street. I was pretty much getting the bad influences. I was looking for an outlet and the Army was there, he said.

I went from being a dropout to completing my master’s degree.