WASHINGTON—President Bush called the Coalition of Instrumentalists and Minstrels, more commonly known as the national marching band, to active duty Monday in order to boost the nation's low morale with a series of lively, up-tempo brass numbers. "This is a measure of last resort," Bush said about the decision to bring out the band, whose 7,500-mile route starts in Maine, stretches down the Eastern Seaboard and across the Midwest, and ends in Southern California at the 2015 Rose Bowl. The band will play a 61,300-hour rendition of "Stars And Stripes Forever" for the entirety of its cross-country march. Bush added, "If the peppy spirit and eye-catching glide step of this band doesn't cheer people up and fix all the bad problems in our nation, I don't know what can." The national marching band was formed in 1942 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to take the nation's mind off—and later serve valiantly in—World War II.