In Country (1991)

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SAUL BROUDY (guitar and harmonica) Saul Broudy served as a laundry and bath platoon leader, 96th Quartermaster Battalion, 1st Logistical Command, at Phan Rang, 1966-1967, but learned many of his songs from members of the 148th Assault Helicopter Company ("Blue Stars") stationed just down the road.

CHIP DOCKERY (guitar) Chip Dockery did two tours with the 13th Tactical Fighter Squadron ("Panther Pack"), 432nd Tactical Fighter Wing, at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base between 1968 and 1971 and returned in 1972 during Linebacker II with the 308th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 31st Tactical Fighter Wing. He flew almost 400 missions into all target areas in the war theater with the majority being against interdiction targets in Barrel Roll and Steel Tiger (northern and southern Laos).

JAMES PATTERSON ("BULL") DURHAM (guitar) Bull Durham, a veteran of the Korean War, served with the 362nd Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron at Pleiku, 1969-1970, and in his own words, "flew 175 missions in a magnificent Gooney Bird (EC-47)—1942 vintage—older than my co-pilot." He toured Army camps in the central highlands with a Gl country band, singing and collecting songs, and assembled the largest manuscript collection of songs of the war.

BILL ELLIS (guitar) Bill Ellis, who was drafted out of a rock band in San Francisco in 1968, became known as the "singing rifleman" of the First Cavalry Division. In March, 1969, he was pulled from field duty as a rifleman with A Company, 1st Battalion, Fifth Cavalry, and reassigned to Special Services. He toured the Cav area of operations, performing for grunts on the fire support bases.

TOBY HUGHES (guitar) Toby Hughes, the balladeer of the in-country air war, was a F4-C Aircraft Commander with the 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron, stationed at Cam Ranh Bay, in 1968. Most of his 204 missions involved armed reconnaissance, close air support of troops and interdiction of trucks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He flew in support of Khe Sanh during the Tet Offensive of 1968.

DICK JONAS (guitar) Dick Jonas, the best-known song writer of the air war, flew 125 missions with the 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron ("Satan's Angels"), 8th Tactical Fighter Wing ("Wolfpack"), Ubon Rachitani Royal Thai Air Force Base, 1967-1968. He participated in Rolling Thunder (the code name for U.S. air operations over North Vietnam at that time), took part in Steel Tiger missions, and flew in support of Khe Sahn.

CHUCK ROSENBERG (guitar and dobro) Chuck Rosenberg served with as an A-Team Communications Supervisor in Company C, Sixth Special Forces Group (Airborne), at Fort Bragg from 1965 to 1968.

TOM PRICE (guitar and back up vocals)

ROBIN THOMAS (electric bass and back up vocals)

LISA ELLIS, SHERRY HUGHES, KATHY JONAS

(back up vocals)

1. GREEN T-SHIRT BLUES (Saul Broudy) A wry comment by Saul Broudy about life in the rear in an army that expected a man to dye his underwear green.

2. GRUNT (Bill Ellis ) This detailed description of the "little things that mean a lot" in the daily life of the combat infantryman—mail from home, a drink of cool water, sharing what you have with your buddies—was written by Bill Ellis.

3. SIX CLICKS (Chuck Rosenberg) "Six Clicks" was written in 1966 by Captain Hershel Gober, MACV, who was at that time serving as a sub-sector adviser in Rach Gia in IV Corps. It was recorded the same year in Saigon by General Edward Lansdale (USAF) and can be found, along with many other songs by Gober, in the superb taped collections of Vietnam War songs which were given by the general to the Library of Congress.

4. SAIGON WARRIOR (Saul Broudy, Robin) There are many military folksongs about rear echelon personnel. This one is descended from a British Army World War I song entitled "The Lousy Lance-Corporal." It circulated widely in Southeast Asia in both Army and Air Force tradition. It was sung by an Australian woman named Maggie as part of a song competition which provided the entertainment at a commanders' conference held at the Nha Trang headquarters of the 17th Aviation Group, in April, 1967. A tape of the concert was given to Saul Broudy by helicopter pilot and singer Gene Easley, who was later killed in action.

5. FIRST CAV (Bill Ellis) "First Cav," written by Bill Ellis in a bunker at LZ Eleanor, rapidly became the "unofficial fight song" of the First Cavalry Division. The division's Public Information Office had a record made of this and other songs by Ellis and distributed 30,000 of them to the troops.

6. HO CHI MINH TRAIL (Toby Hughes, Saul, Chuck, Robin) The Ho Chi Minh Trail was a major supply route about three hundred miles long, just inside and parallel to the eastern Laotian border. It started near Vinh in North Vietnam, entered Laos through mountain passes such Mu Gia or Ban Karai, and ended near Kontum in South Vietnam. In the daytime it was a series of sleepy rural roads and small trails, at night it was, in the words of one pilot who flew there, the Los Angeles Freeway without lights. As Toby Hughes describes in this song, the trail was heavily defended with anti-aircraft guns, automatic weapons (ZPU) and, in the latter days of the war, shoulder fired heat-seeking missiles. The pilots who flew there at night ran the additional risk of flying into unseen mountains or succumbing to vertigo.

7. THE PANTHER PACK IS PROWLING (Chip Dockery) LING PO DROVE THE TRUCK AWAY (Chip Dockery)

8. KING OF THE TRAIL (Chip Dockery) These songs are part of a series which Chip Dockery wrote about the North Vietnamese truck drivers on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He imagines the driver, Ling Po, leaving his home in Quang Khe, about forty miles north of the DMZ, saying goodbye to his girl friend, who wants to go with him, and driving south through the Mu Gia Pass into Laos and on to South Vietnam. Parking in caves during the day and driving by night, he manages to evade the fighter attacks, B-52 strikes and reconnaissance planes, listens over his captured survival radio to American search and rescue efforts, and perhaps even finds another girl.

9.TCHEPONE (Toby Hughes, Chuck, Robin) "Tchepone," written by Toby Hughes in 1968, rapidly became the most popular song of the air war; it was sung in every fighter pilots' bar in Southeast Asia, taped copies circulated widely, and it was recorded by many Air Force singers. Chip Dockery remembers singing it with his back-seater while on a mission over the town itself. Tchepone was a Laotian village strategically located at a major highway junction on the Ho Chi Minh Trail which was taken over by the North Vietnamese as a barracks, storage and staging area for troops and supplies being infiltrated into South Vietnam. The town and its environs were extremely well defended and several pilots were lost there.

10. SITTING IN THE CAB OF MY TRUCK (Chip Dockery) Another song by Chip Dockery about the North Vietnamese truck drivers on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Sometimes, especially late in the war, the drivers were chained to the steering wheel of their trucks, thus linking the fate of the vehicle and the driver.

11. BA MUOI BA (Chuck Rosenberg, Bill) This account of a Montagnard striker's encounter with Vietnam's most popular beer was written by Barry Sadler, better known as the composer of "Ballad of the Green Berets."

12. PULL THE BOOM FROM THE GAS HOLE (Dick

Jonas, Chuck, Robin) The speaker in this song by Dick Jonas is a fighter pilot who is refueling ("on the boom") from a flying tanker in preparation for flying back to North Vietnam to take part in a search and rescue mission for a friend, Wolfpack Two, whose plane has been shot down. With the help of "Sandy" (A1-E aircraft used to suppress enemy groundfire during a rescue operation) and the "Jolly Green Giant," rescue helicopter the downed pilot is rescued and flown to Nakhon Phanom ("NKP") in Thailand, where he spends the evening with a tall beer and a pretty girl.

13. JOLLY GREEN (Bull Durham, Saul, Robin, Tom) This song about the "Jolly Green Giant" or Sikorsky HH-

3E/HH-53E, a large reconnaissance helicopter used to pick up downed American flyers, circulated widely among Air Force singers in Vietnam and Thailand throughout the war.

14. COBRA SEVEN (Toby Hughes, Saul, Chuck, Tom, Robin) Forward air controllers were the airborne directors of strikes against ground targets; they spotted targets and then helped attacking aircraft locate them. Flying low and slow in their tiny planes, the FACs were the eyes and ears of the fighter pilots. This song by Toby Hughes tells the story of a FAC with the call sign Cobra Seven who, while flying his daily patrol in Three Corps, sees a Huey (UH-1 helicopter) shot down. He gives his life standing off the Viet Cong with white phosphorus rockets and M-16 fire while another helicopter rescues the crew of the downed chopper.

15. GREEN BERET AND FRIENDLY FAC (Chuck Rosenberg, Tom, Robin) A recording of this song was made in Nha Trang on March 9, 1966 by members of the 1st Air Commando Squadron. According to Lt. Col. "Bucky" Burruss, USA Special Forces (Ret.), who remembers singing it in the Mike Force bar at Nha Trang in 1968, it was written by Capt. John Myer, 21st Tactical Air Support Squadron. Burress included a text of this song in his book Mike Force. This dialogue between the Army Special Forces trooper on the ground and the Air Force FAC and fighter pilots in the air is closely related to a group of songs about an air traffic controller and a pilot which was sung in Korea as "Itazuke Tower" and in Vietnam as Than Rang Tower," "A Shau Tower" and, in a variant by Dick Jonas, "Ubon Tower." It is, of course, also part of a long tradition of songs about inter-service rivalry.

16. FIREFIGHT (Bill Ellis) "One time I was at LZ Jake and I had a really touching thing happen. The guys tell me they relate to my songs because it really puts the war into words. Well, some of these guys were broken up by 'Firefight' because they were in one the day before and lost some buddies." Bill Ellis, 1969

17. WILL THERE BE A TOMORROW?(Dick Jonas, Bill, Chuck, Robin, Lisa, Sherry, Kathy) This song by Dick Jonas was extremely popular with pilots during the war. Its haunting sadness is reminiscent of many of the songs of World War I.

18. I'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE (Chip Dockery) Chip Dockery wrote this "brag song" for a pilot friend's going home party. It lists the places he has been, the people (mostly forward air controllers) and agencies with which he has worked, and the missions he has flown.

19. HERE I SIT (Saul Broudy) This lament about the trials of wartime life comes from a tape given to Saul Broudy by Ed Almazol. The tape was obtained by Almazol while he was stationed with the 229th Aviation Battalion of the First Cavalry Division near An Khe in 1967-1968.

20. DANANG LULLABY (Bull Durham, Saul, Tom, Robin, and male chorus) Bull Durham collected this song in Vietnam and added a few verses of his own.

21. FIGHTER PILOT'S CHRISTMAS (Dick Jonas, Saul, Chuck, Robin) "But let's face it, fighter pilots are just human and patriotism gets a little watered down now and then...especially if it's Mother's Day, or your wedding anniversary...or if it happens to be your little boy's first day at school and you're 12,000 miles away ...And I guess about the toughest thing in any combat tour is not being home for Christmas." Dick Jonas

22. CHU YEN (Saul Broudy, Tom, Robin) "Chu Yen" is part of a long tradition of songs about encounters between soldiers and exotic young women. The song was popular with both Army Aviation and Air Force pilots, but it is usually associated with the Merrymen, of 173rd Assault Helicopter Company at Lai Khe. This version was recorded by them at a commanders' conference of the 17th Aviation Group in Nha Trang in 1967.

23. BOONIE RAT SONG (Chuck Rosenberg) John M. Del Vecchio, who published the text of this song in The Thirteenth Valley, says that it was "allegedly written by an M-60 machine gunner of the 101st under the double-canopy of the Ruong-Ruong Valley in the spring of 1970. He added the music when his unit moved into the Elephant Valley. In late October of that year I received the words from Private First Class Charles E. 'Doc' Bell of Wichita, Kansas, who was 'keeper' of the company song. The composer was allegedly killed in action." The tune used in this recording was provided by Don Lombardi.

24. BATTLE HYMN OF THE RIVER RATS (Dick Jonas) Dick Jonas wrote this song while flying to the first "practice" stateside reunion of the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots' Association ("Red River Rats") in 1969. The Red River Rats are pilots who flew combat missions across the Red River in North Vietnam. They held "practice" reunions in Thailand and the United States until the POW's came home in 1973, when the first real reunion was held. Other units have adapted this song for themselves, notably the Ravens, who flew forward air control in the secret war in Laos.

25. CRACK WENT THE RIFLE (Bull Durham, Saul, Tom, Robin) In all wars, it finally comes down to the man with the rifle: the grunt, the ground pounder, the boonie rat. As Toby Hughes says, "It's not over until the grunts run up the flag." This song about the combat infantryman was written by Jack Seldon, Bull Durham's co-pilot.

26. FREEDOM BIRD (Bill Ellis) Bill Ellis says about singing to the troops on the firebases, "The thing I remember most is a feeling of distance—everyone was thinking about home." He also remembers walking on a jungle patrol, looking up and seeing in the sky a commercial airliner on its way to the United States— the freedom bird.

27. PLAYED AROUND AND STAYED AROUND VIETNAM TOO LONG (Chuck Rosenberg, Saul Broudy, Bull Durham: lead vocals; Tom, Robin, and all others on choruses) This song was performed by the Intruders of the 281st Assault Helicopter Company at a commanders' conference of the 17th Aviation Group in Nha Trang in April, 1967.

The first name in parentheses is that of the lead vocalist. The remaining names are others participating on that song.

© ® 1991

Flying Fish Records Inc. 1304 W. Schubert Chicago, IL 60614 FF 70552

CREDITS

Recorded at Studiomedia, Evanston, Illinois, by Benj Kanters except track 24 recorded at Old Town School of Folk Music by Ealing Audio, engineered by Hudson Fair. Produced by Bruce Kaplan.

Special thanks to the Old Town School of Folk Music and the Ambassador West Hotel, Chicago.

Design by Martha Martin.

Notes by Lydia Fish

This album is part of an ongoing undertaking by the Vietnam Veterans Oral History and Folklore Project to collect, preserve and make more widely known the folksongs of the Vietnam War. We hope that it will encourage veterans to remember and to share with the Project songs from their own experience: songs which they sang or collected in the form of manuscripts, books, records or tapes. Obviously, there are gaps in our knowledge of this material—we would have very much liked to have included songs by women, African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans who served in the war, but so far none have been collected. We are also very short of Marine, Navy and Coast Guard material. We should be most grateful if anyone who knows of singers or songs from these traditions would contact us at the Project address below.

A booklet containing the texts of the songs in this album, with extended notes on the songs and a bibliography, can be ordered from the Project. Please send $3.00 to cover postage and handling.

The Vietnam Veterans Oral History and Folklore Project

Dr. Lydia Fish, Director
Department of Anthropology
Buffalo State College
1300 Elmwood Avenue
Buffalo, NY 14222
(716)883-1843


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