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The USO Girls of Vietnam
They came to us to bring a smile
In this land of Uncle Ho
Always in danger as they put on there show
Those were the girls of the USO
They all chose to come here
To lift our spirits and make us smile
Each one brought there special gift
If you weren't able to see them
The Radio waves would spread the news
That the girls were here to take away your blues
If only for a little while, they would make you smile
If you were lucky enough to see the show
Two hours of happiness
Was worth two years in the Nam
They would bring a short reprieve
The sight of a beautiful girl from the USA
Raquel Welch, Connie Stevens and Suzanne Pleshette
We remembered fondly what they wore
Just to put a smile on a weary sole
With a heart of Gold and jokes galore
Theye entertained us one and all
But now those years have passed us on by
And your faces still linger on in my mind
You have left us now in Gods grace
So accept my thanks for the memories
Thanks for all the memories
The Lonely Dirt Road
On a lonely dirt road in the middle of a war
I was only 18 a mere kid new to this game
This game we call war, I hadn’t learned the score
This game adults play, using their kids as pawns from shore to shore
I transported pilots from Saigon to the ports
I got my first call in the summer of 68
I had not yet learned about war
Had not learned of this thing called hate
It was in the middle of a rice paddy
Just a young soldier and his pilot
Headed down that long dusty road
The pilot was my only load
We were ten miles out and no one around
It was a beautiful day, it was quiet, not a sound
Down by the river, so far out of town, it seemed like a short ride
Only a fool would venture out this far all alone
A bend in the road and a forest ahead, pretty trees all around
A shot rings out piercing the quiet, what a blood curdling sound
A hole in the windshield and a hole in his head
I looked the pilots way, was he dead?
Young soldier grabs his weapon as he looks all around
His heart is pounding, as he stays close to the ground
With his weapon in hand, would he be killed in this strange land?
He calls on his radio for help, he and a sniper the only ones around
Was this sniper alone, would others join him soon?
Was the sniper alone or an entire platoon?
Soldier checks his ammo, only one clip in his hand
Would help get there before he spilled his blood on the sand?
The radio crackled, help was on the way
But when faced with death, an hour becomes a day
He listened he waited, didn't dare breath
Would this enemy hunt him, or would he leave?
Finally after what seemed like an eternity, the sound of a chopper
A gun ship this soldier hoped
This fear was making waiting harder to cope
From his hiding place he dared not raise his scope
The chopper got closer, he heard guns blazing
The bullets cut the trees the smoke looked like a hazing
Five men jumped from the chopper with guns
He wondered; so this is how it's all done?
The soldier felt something warm on his cheek
On his cheek there was blood, flesh cut by the glass
He had not noticed any pain
He was busy concentrating so his very life he could gain
The jeep windshield had been shattered
In the frantic hail of bullets, it had not mattered
But the pilot was dead, shot through the head
The soldier thought, it could have been me instead
Young man never had never been shot at before
This experience changed him to the core
Some experiences can change you so they say
Some experiences can change your whole DNA
I called it my Vietnam
We all called it our Vietnam
We felt it was, as a war quite versed
As versed as any psalms
When we first arrived, as kids
We'd have sworn we had her in our very palms
Wasn't long until before our very eyes
This War would soon cut us down to size
Too big for our britches we were
But we never forget how to say 'sir'
We thought as young whips, we were cunning
We soon discovered Vietnam wasn't just funning
Oh yes, Boys, she meant business and knew her stuff
When asked back home 'did She win?'
We'd knock back a drink and say 'sure enough'
We felt kind of whipped
We had felt ill equipped
But back home older veterans shook their heads
"We could have attested to that fact, nough said"
Why didn't ya tell us fellas, we asked
We could say till the cows came home
But we knew our warnings don't last
One generation whipped, and ill equipped
The next generation, same thing
Each generation, having a new war song to sing
Would you have believed us then?
No, you'd have said: "Come again?"
Just as when we were young, we are different we said
We all say the same to those before us in time
We say the same thing until war makes us count our dead
(c) S. Weathers 2011
Even though I was in the military and in Vietnam, I do recall, vividly, the protests going on back in America. I was not upset, but I do remember some of my comrades were pretty upset that America was acting ungrateful. After all, we were supposed to be fighting for and protecting America, but all in all, as the war drug on and especially in the light of the TET Offensive, when we we all started to understand this war may not be winnable after all, I could well understand young men not wanting to be placed into forced servitude (draft) and made to fight in a war they did not agree with.
I loved the military and still do, but I realized that everyone wasn't me. Many soldiers, as the war continued, slipped off into the jungles of Vietnam, probably either being killed in the process or making their way home from a war they began to be disillusioned with. In America people used the terms, draft dodger, sedition, communists, socialists and anti-war protesters, baby killers, much like today. I am quite sure if the nightly news showed us all the real horrors of war, as it did back then, we'd have many more people taking to the streets, as they did then. I'm the first to admit war isn't pretty and I truly think, in modern warfare, no one wins. But our governments will continue to pick a fight with any country they either want something from, or for some kind of profit.
If we haven't learned a thing from Vietnam, then I don't think we ever will or even want to learn anything from it all. I learned many young men and women get sacrificed and it's a job for people, especially in a bad economy, but I don't see much else that war serves.
So I have compiled some of my favorite war protest songs from the Vietnam War era, but they can easily cover the wars we have now been fighting for far too long in the Middle East. I may have been a military man, but I am also a peace loving person. I became a Drill Instructor to, hopefully, teach young people how to survive and if they have to go to war, to hopefully, make it back home alive and in one peace. I always hope I did my job well because I loved helping young people learn how to survive.
This one was sung rather late in the game during the Vietnam War and Country Joe and the Fish got the crowd of over a million people to join in. I kind of credit this song as one of the big ones that helped stop the war. We were a generation who did stop an entire war.
Barry McGuire did this sone and we can tell, from the words, how we may possibly all be on the Eve of Destruction, maybe even more so now, than back then.
This is the one and only protest song created and sung by CCR in their career. They really didn't want to do a protest song, but since everyone was buying them in droves, they decided to do this one.
The words to this song kind of says it all. So it does not need too much introduction. I have no doubt most everyone has heard of this one.
This one, much like Blowin in the Wind, kind of says it all too.
This one depicts how the world has created soldiers from as far back as civilization can remember. They answer the call and some love it, some become disillusioned by it.
This one really points out how most battles and skirmishes are futile and usually not necessary, for all the 'prize' turns out to be nothing anyone should have shed blood for.
John Lennon and his wife created this song to plead with people all over the world to try peace, for a change, instead of war. It too says it all.
This one sung by Pete Seeger is a tongue in cheek look at how people viewed draft dodgers back then.
Arlo Guthrie did this rendition of the song. This depicts soldiers from long ago and fits the Vietnam war as well as the modern wars of today. It sings of the futility of wars.
There were more but these were the most popular songs of that time.
Vietnam veterans are unique as the only group of combat veterans in the history of this country who returned home to be reviled, vilified and abused rather than honored and appreciated. We are one of the most unjustly-maligned groups in American history.
As young men and women we answered the nations call to protect the world from the spread of Communism, at least that is what we believed. Some of us were drafted and many of us volunteered to serve for a cause we believed in. We all left are youth and innocence in Southeast Asia. Most of us are still haunted by the things we saw and did while we were there and over 58,000 of our brothers and sisters never made it home from that war.
When a nation of young people are drafted and forced into a war they may or may not agree with, then I think a country is asking for trouble from the onset. How does a country get enthusiasm for a war that is possibly reviled and hated by those forced into slavery via the draft board? So not only did people back home start to hate the war, many Vietnam veterans came home, disillusioned, broken and not even welcomed with open arms. Instead of returning to America with a bang, our return was more like a whimper and a sigh from the general public. To this day, I may not even be absolutely certain why we were in Vietnam, except, while there I felt it was a useful endeavor. I, as did many military people, felt we were halting the spread of Communism, maybe we were maybe it was just a good sell on the spin doctor’s part when it came to selling a war to people. I do know that sometimes, Americans presence brought indignation and hatred and even death upon some of the Vietnamese people for being accused of siding with America, from the Viet Cong’s point of view. At other times, it brought anger and indignation from Americans who accused the people of siding with the Viet Cong. It grew very difficult for the Vietnamese citizens to look at us all with kindness when treated as such by those of us there to help.
Why do I mention all of that? Well, the newscasters would often do stories about the Zippo Wars, as many Americans began to call the pictures of burning villages at the hands of some military people. To be fair, many military people, by later in the war, began to surmise that the support back home, as well as the chain of command was beginning to break down. American politicians began playing politics with young lives, those who were in Vietnam, without batting an eyelash. The resentment on the part of military people began to take hold.
Vietnam was the only war in history that was televised live nightly for people to watch. The unfiltered images grew on people’s minds and brought about the large uprisings a groundswell of opposition to the war and the strong passion ignited by the anti-war activists Vietnam Veterans were grossly mistreated when they returned home. It was the summer of 1969 when I myself returned home and I remember taking my DD 214 down to the local town clerk to have it posted in the records, like a dummy I wore my uniform that day as a proud soldier returning home, people would stare at me and some even spat at me and called me baby killer. From the images that people saw on the news they assumed that we were all baby killers and we were all looked down upon. For four decades Vietnam Vets have been vilifed by some factions of the public. Vietnam vets are still treated with contempt in some circles, and the false stereotype continues to be repeated, often innocently. It's time to educate the American public about our Vietnam Veterans. For those of you who are too young to remember the truth, the lies have been repeated so often that they are generally accepted as the truth.
***QUOTE***
Television brought the brutality of war
into the comfort of the living room.
Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America
- not on the battlefields of Vietnam.
--- Marshall McLuhan, 1975
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Vietnam War myths: A common belief: The U.S. lost the war in Vietnam
Fact: The South Vietnamese people lost the war once funding from Congress was cut off. In fact, the U.S. won every major battle fought in Vietnam. So there is NO reason for veterans to ever feel defeated.
Myth: Most Vietnam veterans were drafted.
Fact: Two thirds of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers. Some even volunteered for the draft, so those who were officially listed as being drafted, were, in fact volunteers.
Myth: A disproportionate number of blacks were killed in Vietnam. Many back home believed that blacks were used as ‘cannon fodder’ in battles.
Fact: 86% of the men who died in Vietnam were white and 12.5% were black while 1.2% came from other races. In the book: All That We Can Be, authors, Moskos and Butler said they did analyze that claim and could report most definitely that ‘blacks being used as cannon fodder’ is absolutely not true.
The biggest lie of all : We lost the war in Vietnam
How could we loose a war that we already stopped fighting. The last American troops departed Vietnam on the 29th of March 1973. The fall of Saigon did not happen until two years later on the 30th of April 1975.*******************
