WASHINGTON – In the hours after President Barack Obama is sworn into his second term in office Monday, he’ll take his motorcade back down Pennsylvania Avenue for the inaugural parade – a long, historic tradition.

U.S. Air Force Technical Sgt. Aaron Moats will be there, too, playing his trombone as part of the United States Air Force Band.

Moats, 35, a Kettering native who attended Kettering Fairmont High School until his junior year, is performing in his second inauguration. He missed 2008 due to illness, but played in George W. Bush’s second inauguration.

Moats is a parade veteran – he recently marched in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade – and this will be less demanding than that march. It’s a mile-and-a-half parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. The hard part will be beforehand, standing around for hours in the cold waiting until it’s time to go.

“It’s a very physically demanding job, more than anyone would think,” he said. “Just standing still for a long time – it’s not a natural thing for a body to do.”

Still, this event will be a relatively cheerful one. Last year, he and his band played as the remains of State Department employees killed in Libya were transferred from planes to hearses. His unit does more than 1,000 jobs a year, including public relations tours and NBC’s Today Show Fourth of July show.

According to the Defense Department, U.S. Armed Forces have played a role in every official presidential inaugural ceremony since April 30, 1789, when members of the Continental Army escorted George Washington to the first U.S. presidential swearing-in ceremony at Federal Hall in New York City.

Since then, that involvement has become more sophisticated, with military units providing music, marching bands, salute batteries and color guards.

Moats learned trombone from his father, Bill Moats, who taught music at Trotwood Schools. He stayed in Dayton until his senior year of high school, when he transferred to the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan.

He was finishing up his master’s degree in Washington, D.C., when he heard about an opening with the U.S. Air Force band, so he auditioned. That was in 2003.

He said inaugural parades tend to be fun because “there’s an amazing amount of people on the road.”

“You’re in this queue line forever, then when it starts out and you start moving, people go nuts, chanting “U.S.A! U.S.A.! or “Air Force,” he said.

But eventually “you lose the crowd,” and concentrate on the task at hand.

“It’s one of the biggest jobs we do,” he said.