There was also “Open Letter To My Teenage Son” by some guy named Victor Lundberg that somehow reached #10. He rambles on about hippies and what not over the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and closes with
And if you decide to burn your draft card
then burn your birth certificate at the same time
From that moment on, I have no son
There’s always Tom Paxton’s Talking Vietnam Potluck Blues
Yeah, but the song is a bit tongue in cheek. Somebody once took Merle to task for rolling a non-tobacco smoke backstage; after all, “We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee.”
He pointed out that he was not, at that moment, *in *Muskogee.
But Okie from Muskogee inspired Chinga Chavin’s classic Asshole from El Paso
Or you could just download it. Amazon MP3’s are totally DRM free and are 256 kbps in quality. They can be downloaded directly into iTunes.
Maybe UncleRojelio doesn’t want to put any money in SSgt Sadler’s pocket.
It’s okay, though, he’s been dead for 20 years.
Scary stuff…
Much like Okie from Muskogee, Kenny Roger’s Ruby is hardly pro-Vietnam but it does include the following line.
It wasn’t me that started that old crazy Asian war
But I was proud to go and do my patriotic chore
Hijack: You know, with the marginal exception of Good Morning Vietnam, I’ve never seen a Vietnam War movie with any Vietnamese, of either side, as actual, individual characters. We Americans knew hardly anything about them at the time and we still don’t, except for their food.
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Oliver Stone’s Heaven and Earth is from the perspective of a Vietnamese woman who ends up marrying an American soldier. Heaven & Earth (1993 film) - Wikipedia It’s not Stone’s best work but it does portray the Vietnam War from a Vietnamese perspective.
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I think the same thing can be largely said about most of our enemies (especially non-Europeans). Focusing on the rationales and humanity of our opponents (even if just on the individual level) tends to muddy the waters too much for most war movies.
Continuing briefly with the hijack here, Letters from Iwo Jima, an American film directed by Clint Eastwood, tells the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima entirely from the Japanese perspective. Letters from Iwo Jima - Wikipedia
Enemy at the Gates is an excellent film about a sniper duel between Nazis and Soviets during the Battle of Stalingrad. The Soviet sniper, played by Jude Law and based on a real guy, is the protagonist, whereas the Nazi sniper, a completely fictional character played by Ed Harris is the bad guy. The Nazi sniper, while bad, is still a pretty well developed character. While these are Europeans, I do feel that the Eastern Front is almost completely ignored in film, except as a punishment to threaten colonel Klink with.
I seem to recall a truly dreadful record called “Camouflage” about a marine who gets killed and comes back from the dead to save his mates lives…shudder.
George Takei’s character in The Green Beret is more interesting than John Wayne’s. I admit, the characterization is shallow, but it’s there.
I recommend the film Stalingrad.
Another one is “What We’re Fighting For” by David Dudley, which peaked at #4 on the country charts in 1966.
In the Shangri-Las’ 1966 hit single “Long Live Our Love” the singer takes a supportive view of her boyfriend going off to fight overseas. And the song doesn’t end in tragedy - at least not explicitly - unlike certain other Shangri-Las’ songs. Vietnam is never mentioned, but where else could he be going.
No, I knew they existed. I literally meant “if I find one” as in find one on the side of the road. I’m not buying one just for this one album.
There is the aforementioned We Were Soldiers which has a couple of examples, one of which purposely makes its contrast to the usual faceless characterization in a rather pointed way.
There was this steaming helping of glurge:
As in Haggard’s “Okie,” the pro-Vietnam sentiment was oblique in this one, but if you were living through those times, you could hear it:
Plenty of on-topic listening fun times here, too: