“The Unicorn” Song

The Story Behind the TAPS Tradition

In nearly any other room, anywhere else in the world, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with four stars resting on each shoulder, would project effortless confidence — the product of decades of military service that demanded coolness under pressure, being able to read situations quickly and accurately, and always being ready to face challenges. 

That was not the case when General Martin E. Dempsey walked into the Grand Ballroom at TAPS Good Grief Camp in Arlington, Virginia, during his first year as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dempsey shared with DOD News in May 2015 that “he didn’t know what to expect” from his first TAPS experience. There is something overwhelming about being in the center of a room of children grieving the loss of a special person — many times their mom or dad — and sensing the vulnerability blanketed by the resilience that military children and surviving children seem to inherently possess. 

Dempsey opened the floor for questions from the children gathered around him on the Grand Ballroom floor. To them, he wasn’t an intimidating Army general; he was a gentle hero in a uniform that probably felt very familiar — comforting even. As the questions got underway, 4-year-old Lizzie Yaggy listened to the hushed advice of her Military Mentor, Bryant, who suggested she ask the general a sports question — basketball, football, something about his favorite teams. She raised her hand, and Dempsey called on her.

“My mind just blanked,” Lizzie, now 18, recalls, “I didn’t remember what I was supposed to ask him. So, instead, I just asked, ‘Is my daddy an angel?’” 

As Lizzie remembers, “Time kind of stopped there.” The innocent — albeit, important — question from such a small child hung in the air as the room waited for this grown-up (who surely had all the answers) to reply. “It was just very human.” 

Taken by surprise, no doubt, Dempsey reflects on this moment “How do you answer that?” 

Lizzy’s dad, U.S. Marine Corps Pilot Major David Yaggy, served two tours overseas, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. At the time of his death, he was a flight instructor based in Pensacola, Florida. During a routine training flight on March 14, 2008, with his student, A.J. Presyo, their plane tragically crashed into a mountain in Alabama. 

Finding the words to answer such a deep question — to many of us — might seem impossible, but according to Lizzy, “[General Dempsey] answered in the most correct way…‘Yes, of course. Of course he is.’ It took a moment, but he just kind of reassured not just me, but everyone there that the people we love are with us always.”

No one in that room — least of all Lizzy and General Dempsey — could have known that what happened next would go on to become a TAPS Good Grief Camp tradition: Dempsey broke into a song that any Good Grief Camper would recognize. And, in a matter of minutes, it somehow lifted the heaviness that hung in the room that day: 

“A long time ago, when the Earth was green
And there was more kinds of animals than you’d ever seen
They’d run around free while the Earth was being born
But the loveliest of them all was the unicorn…”

Years later, the “The Unicorn” song is still a part of the Good Grief Camp opening ceremony. “It’s one of my favorite parts of nationals every year,” Lizzy shares. “I sing it often…whenever I hear it, it feels like a hug.” And, it calls to mind that very first time Dempsey, Lizzy, and the Good Grief Campers sang it together, when Lizzy says, “He kind of found a way to hug everyone in the room.” 

This year, at the 31st Annual TAPS National Military Survivor Seminar and Good Grief Camp — just as it has every year since Lizzy asked her question, even if it takes first-time attendees and some of the older campers a minute to warm up, the Grand Ballroom will be full of children singing along and miming “green alligators and long-necked geese…humpy-back camels and chimpanzees…cats and rats and elephants” and, of course, the unicorn. 

One such camper, Cambridge Brown, attended his first Good Grief Camp in 2023. He admits that on his first day, he was sad and didn’t really want to talk to anybody until he heard Dempsey sing “The Unicorn” song during the opening ceremony. “It was a Godwink because me and my dad used to listen to it…it was just the way he sang it,” Cambridge recalls. “It made me feel closer to my dad.”

Last year, when Cambridge attended his second Good Grief Camp, he came prepared in a unicorn outfit and helped Dempsey lead the room in the iconic song. 

General Dempsey and “The Unicorn” song have a special place in the hearts of Lizzy and Cambridge and thousands of other Good Grief Campers. It’s the beginning of a special weekend when, in the words of Lizzy — who still shares a special bond with her friend, General Dempsey, “Surviving children can come together…and realize [grief] is a common experience, which feels so rare. You feel supported by people that may be strangers, but — by the end of the weekend — feel like family.”

Kristi Stolzenberg is TAPS Magazine and Special Projects Editor.

Photos: TAPS Archives