A then 19-years-old Greg Smith was hanging out in his military barracks when he was stationed in Berlin, Germany serving the U.S. Army in 1972. Fifty feet away, he heard the acoustic guitar of fellow serviceman Frank Lovato reverberating off the walls. Smith felt inspired to chime in.

“I just sat down and said, ‘what are you doing?’” Smith recalls. “We just instantly hit it off and instantly became friends and (I) started singing with him.”

This initial interaction soon grew into something more. The two began jamming together off duty and a year later, added the recently drafted Steve Skinner into the fold.

Lovato, Skinner and Smith had an appreciation for the gently melodic and occasionally politically-charged folk music of the day, whether it was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens or James Taylor. And they brought it to the people of Germany, playing weekend nights in downtown Berlin for 25 to 50 people at a time and were invited to play the Volksfest celebration, in which the U.S. Army paid tribute to the citizens of their host city.

But Lovato, Skinner and Smith’s time in Berlin ended when the three were sent back stateside in 1974.

So, Skinner ended up finishing school at the Univesity of North Carolina-Greensboro while Lovato and Smith made a six-month trip down to San Juan, Puerto Rico to record a few songs. Afterwards, the communication lines remained opened but reconnections were few and far between. Skinner, however, frequently thought about his band of brothers.

“You had a life up to a point and you meet someone like that, it just adds something to who you are,” Skinner says. “When we left, we left the service. You left each other. That’s what you were going to miss.”

That is, until June 2008, when Smith called up Lovato, Skinner and three of their friends and fellow soldiers that were stationed in Berlin for a reunion at a friend’s farm in Iowa. They gathered around the camp fire playing the same songs they performed over three decades ago.

“We sat down and started playing and realized we still clicked a little bit,” Skinner says. “I realized it was just like I had seen them the day before. It wasn’t like it was years gone by.”

Following the reunion, Smith was asked to sing the national anthem at the 2008 Trails West! Festival. Afterwards, he brought up the idea to festival organizers about getting Lovato and Skinner back together for a rare public performance at the 2009 event.

Lovato, Skinner and Smith will perform at the Trails West! City Stage from 12:30 to 1:15 p.m. Aug. 22 and 1 to 1:45 p.m. Aug. 23. And the audience will not only hear the classic folk songs the group proficiently performs, they’ll also see a bond that’s survived the dangers and joys of their military service.

“We have an incredible amount of love for each other,” Smith says. “We want to hold onto that for dear life.”