The music we all heard during the Vietnam War was not like that
which you heard in the movie Good Morning Vietnam. Not at all. First
of all, the only soldiers that had radios that could pick up
Armed Forces Radio were those settled comfortably in the rear...
in places like Saigon, Nha Trang and Cam Ranh Bay. Living in one
of those places was like living in America. There was no
fighting there, unless you can call a few incoming mortars or
RPGs every three or four months a battle. Nope, those places were too cushy to be called
combat duty postings.
The soldiers in the field however, their life was different. And
one thing that was different about it was that their radios
didn't pick up AFVN radio... if they even had radios. Because of
that, the music you heard on fire posts, signal sites, forward
operating
bases and the like... or for that matter over your earphones as
you sat in the back of a chopper ferrying you to your next raid,
was music coming from a cassette recorder; music that was the personal property of some ditty bopper
that carried it along with him to stop himself from going crazy.
As the war dragged on, and draft quotas were raised and
deferment and exemption loopholes closed, most of the military
personnel that served in 'Nam ended up being between 19 and 24
year's old. According to some figures, over 90 percent of them
were under 23. That means that the music they listened to was
the music of their time, not the time of the Viet Nam war... but
their time. Yet because they listened to it in Viet
Nam, it usually had a double meaning: a) it was current music,
and b) it was topical to their existence as soldiers in Viet
Nam.
As an example, during the Siege of Khe Sanh many of the troops
that fought in that little firefight adopted the song “No
Place To Run” by Martha and the Vandellas, as their theme song.
As we said, a) it was current music and b) it matched perfectly
their situation.
As for what kind of music predominated, that is hard to say.
Whoever you were, wherever you came from, your music could be
heard playing from a tape cassette in some Boonie Rat's
pocket.
If you were a rocker, the rhythms, raw energy and screaming
guitars of rock music could be heard, as could psychedelic rock
and even folk.
Rock music though was pervasive, as its high tempo and and even higher
volume mimicked
the confusion of war and the firefights that popped up daily. Without doubt, 1960s rock affected how soldiers
thought of and saw the war they were fighting.
Just one example will make our point: as the war progressed the term "Rock and Roll"
itself came to stand for not the music, but the very
embodiment of war—soldiers scurrying around, preparing to move
out and engage the enemy, as in let's “Rock-and-Roll.”
And too, later, as an assault team's Huey landed and men
rolled off and assembled to hit the tree line, their CO would
often shout out to them his final command before combat ensued.
Heard over the dying din of the helicopter returning to base to
pick up another load of men, his command of only six words would ring
in their ears: "Rock and Role, let's move out!"
Followed by return shouts of Hooah! and Di Di Mau! every troop
on the line, whether they were chasing their first CIB or
already had a pocket full of them, knew that this was it. The
firefight was on. As importantly, they also knew that this time the
command of Rock and Roll meant Lock and Load... a
transliteration of the words meaning to slam a full magazine
into the weapon, and switch their weapons from
semiautomatic to automatic.
Rock and Roll, Lock and Load... it was that simple.
Even so—Rock aside—of all of the types of music heard in Vietnam, perhaps the
most poignant and pervasive was that brought to the world by
soul musicians like Otis Redding Percy Sledge, Sam Cooke, and of
course, James Brown. In fact, back in April, 2013,
we posted an
article about James Brown's music and its impact on those who
served at Fort Gordon.
In the music player below we have recreated the music from that
article... Soul Music, the best of
the best of Vietnam War music. We hope you enjoy it.
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