topic Re: Boomers - do you remember???? in Community Chat

Boomers - do you remember????

151949 — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:32:39 GMT

The unofficial theme song of the soldiers serving in Viet Nam? WE GOTTA GET OUTTA THIS PLACE.

A friend from nursing school whose husband was in Nam sent her a tape of the guys in his unit singing this song.I had a reel to reel tape player and we played that tape endlessly in our dorm. Sadly, her husband became one of the 58,000 + who didn't come home.Today she posted a picture of him and the tape on her FB page. She never remarried, had a little boy a few weeks after we graduated and raised him alone.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

culebra — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:42:44 GMT

I remember. The song was made famous by British Rock Group The Animals and adopted by the Viet Nam soldiers.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

itsmetoo — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:46:57 GMT

I sure do remember. Those were sad times.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

151949 — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:46:58 GMT

Always best when sung by a very large group as loud as you can.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

Love my grandkids — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:47:04 GMT

I'm 69 and remember it well.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

Mom2Dogs — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:48:44 GMT

So sad, I remember laying in my bed at home and seeing the men coming down the stairs of the airplane. I have never forgotten that scene.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

151949 — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:53:35 GMT

@Mom2Dogs When my brother came home he came out the back end of a troop carrier in a casket.The guys who walked out of an airplane were the lucky ones.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

Gardengal55 — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:54:40 GMT

Yes, I remember that song also. I graduated high school in '73 and college in '77. I remember alot of anti-war protests on campus and heard that song everywhere. Takes me back to alot of good times and some not so good times. Whether you supported the war or not, it was a pivotal time in this country's history.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

QVCkitty1 — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:56:56 GMT

I graduated in 67 and we lost 2 of our class, in that horrible war.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

151949 — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:57:45 GMT

Several of the girls in my nursing school were paying for school by joining the army nurse corp. After they passed their licensing boards they were required to serve 4 years - 2 active duty & 2 reserves. They all ended up in Nam - they all came back but were permanently changed by this experience, and not in a good way.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

151949 — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 01:02:15 GMT

Viet Nam lasted more or less for 10 years. It started out slow - just advisors being sent there and just kept escalating. Now we have been at war in the middle east for 16 years and there is no sign of any ending.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

ptagirl — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 01:22:22 GMT

Yes, it was a very sad time. My brother was over there and came home mentally scarred..and disrespected...still has nightmares and suicide attempts. Also lost a very close friend there after he was there only a month. My DH's cousin also lost his life...

Visited the traveling memorial Wall.... brought back sad memories and I cried for all the lost souls during that conflict. Was also able to take etchings of our friend and cousin's names ... was very heartbreaking still....

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

Barbara in Virginia — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 04:19:25 GMT

Oh, yes, I remember that song well. Also "Next Stop Viet Nam". I was a bridesmaid in a sorority sister's wedding right before both she and her groom graduated. He very soon after that went to Viet Nam as an officer. I was in the Peace Corps in my site the following fall when I got a lettherer from another sorority sister telling me that Bill had been killed. Heartbreaking. When my husband was medically evacuated from the Peace Corps he was sent to Bethesda Naval Hospital and was in a ward with many other young men who were there after being evacuated from Viet Nam. I will never forget my heartbreak in seeing them there. Some had flashbacks and kept weapons concealed under their pillows. Others were so physically maimed that they would never be the same again. What was horrific to me is that the VA was offering them nothing after they were released from the hospital.

I was very much opposed to that war and participated in both of the huge marches in Washington, DC.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

Barbara in Virginia — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 04:43:04 GMT

We actually met Senator Edward Kennedy on the flight back to the US. When the stewardess told him that two Peace Corps volunteers were on the plane after a medical evacuation, he invited us to travel with him and his entourage on the bus that carried them from the plane to the Dulles airport. So we gladly accepted with my cat in tow in a wicker basket, who looked up at the senator and meowed. They were very cordial and Senator Kennedy told me to call him if I had any difficulties in DC.

At Bethesda Naval there was a small protected patio in the sunshine outside the ward where I would talk with many of these young men,many of them practically babies. It was there that I learned that there would be no further contact with them once they left the hospital. I was so alarmed and upset that I called Senator Kennedy and told him what they had told me. He told me that he would get on it, and he DID! He made arrangements for all those in that ward and they at least had proper follow up.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

tucsongal — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 05:24:03 GMT

It's on my treadmill playlist for the gym. I love The Animals and other British Invasion groups.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

KathyM23 — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 05:24:40 GMT

How could we ever forget. So many of our boys lost their lives or were physically and emotionally maimed. Such of waste of a generalion of brave soldiers - they were just boys. My brother served and did come back. Many friends also served, some returned, some did not. Makes my heart ache. My good friend lost her husband to that war - he never got to see his baby son - he was only there two weeks when he was killed. My husband's best friend was also a casualty. Many other sad tales to relate, but I just can't. To this day I cannot think about, read about or watch anything about Vietnam - makes me so sad at the losses and mad at the lack of support for our troops. Our boys lives were put on the line and for what. Now we buy clothes that say Made In Vietnam. I do not. The vets are still dying from the effects of Vietnam - Agent Orange and cancer.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

hennypenny — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 05:32:38 GMT

A tragic time.

One cannot forget.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

Ms tyrion2 — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 05:42:02 GMT

@KathyM23 wrote:
How could we ever forget. So many of our boys lost their lives or were physically and emotionally maimed. Such of waste of a generalion of brave soldiers - they were just boys. My brother served and did come back. Many friends also served, some returned, some did not. Makes my heart ache. My good friend lost her husband to that war - he never got to see his baby son - he was only there two weeks when he was killed. My husband's best friend was also a casualty. Many other sad tales to relate, but I just can't. To this day I cannot think about, read about or watch anything about Vietnam - makes me so sad at the losses and mad at the lack of support for our troops. Our boys lives were put on the line and for what. Now we buy clothes that say Made In Vietnam. I do not. The vets are still dying from the effects of Vietnam - Agent Orange and cancer.

It was a tragic and unnecessary war.

Agent Orange was a defoliant used by the United States military not the VietCong or the North Vietnamese army. The south Vietnamese people suffered greatly also. I hold no grudge against the people of Vietnam.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

Barbara in Virginia — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 05:56:19 GMT

What was also tragic about that war was our loss of innocence. We learned that our government could and would lie to us. We learned that many politicians would sacrifice those young lives to further their own political aspirations. It was that anger that drove many of us to march against that war. It had absolutely nothing to do with spitting on vets or any of the other stories that were going around. It was all about ending the war and bringing our men and women home. Anger that should have been directed to politicians was misplaced on the protesters. I knew absolutely no one nor heard of anything despicable like that. We all fervently wished that we could have brought the war to a close earlier, but we probably were able to bring pressure to bear to get out sooner than we might have.

It came quite as surprise to me that the press in the country where I served in the Peace Corps gave much more honest and factual coverage to what was keeping the war going and the motivations for it than the press in the US when I returned. The Viet Nam war was very unpopular there to the extent that members of the Catholic clergy preached against it regularly.

All of the young men I got to know in the hospital very sincerely believed that they were serving their country, which could do no wrong. Of course I never gave voice to them that I opposed the war and was very pleased that I was able to help them. But also very sad at the same time.

Re: Boomers - do you remember????

luvdoodles — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 11:23:35 GMT

Remember that song very well, my best friend in high school had a brother that went to Viet Nam. He commited suicide a few months after he came home. War is a terrible thing to witness. That's why I am all for helping and donating to all that have served us.