# We Gotta Get Out of This Place  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Doug Bradley, Craig Werner]] - Full Title:: We Gotta Get Out of This Place - Category: #books ## Highlights > Radio First Termer. ([Location 171](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=171)) > Music in Vietnam didn’t deliver a pre-ordained set of meanings to the troops. Rather, the songs afforded a set of overlapping fields for making, sharing, and at times rejecting meaning. ([Location 189](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=189)) > Acceptance or rejection of these songs and others was largely shaped by the three Ws—When you were there; Where you were; and What you did. ([Location 193](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=193)) > More than any other song, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” was the glue that held the improvised communities of Vietnam together then and a magnet bringing vets together today. “ ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place’ was our ‘We Shall Overcome,’ ” observed Bobbie Keith, who served as an Armed Forces Radio DJ in Vietnam from 1967 to 1969. ([Location 321](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=321)) > Kennedy had defeated Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the election of November 1960 by a mere 112,000 votes (0.17 percent), ([Location 538](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=538)) > “shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty”— ([Location 558](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=558)) > who launched the United States on a policy of, as George Donnelson Moss observed in Vietnam: An American Ordeal, “not trying to win in Vietnam; he was doing only enough not to lose.”7 ([Location 559](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=559)) > Hoa Mein Toy, Flowers of Our Land, was the name of it. ([Location 703](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=703)) > “The Ballad of the Green Berets” was the Vietnam anthem. But the more I heard the song, the more I compared it to what I was seeing in Vietnam. They didn’t square up. It was becoming less heroic. Now, rather than ringing true, the song rings hollow. ([Location 804](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=804)) > A large-scale survey in 1964 found that the single biggest reason for volunteering was to avoid being drafted; by 1968 the percentage of volunteers had dropped to 6.1 percent. ([Location 972](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=972)) > “To Promote the Maintenance of International Peace and Security in Southeast Asia,” a document which became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. ([Location 1010](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1010)) > United States, hundreds of thousands filled the streets during the Night of the Barricades in Paris, and the authorities murdered an unknown number of demonstrators during the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City. Opposition to the Vietnam War spread across the United States and Europe, massive demonstrations taking place in London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome. On the battlefield, the year was the bloodiest yet: more than 14,000 American soldiers were killed and in excess of 150,000 wounded. The number of Vietnamese casualties was at least ten times that high. ([Location 1040](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1040)) > There was Willie-Pete [white phosphorous] everywhere, a real ‘in-the-shit’ firefight, ass-kickin’ back-to-back by God jungle fightin’. But we stood up to ’em: mother fuckers, look out! We’re comin’ to put something on Mr. Charles, snuffing gooks. ([Location 1689](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1689)) > Saigon: where Ho meant an uncle, not a lover. ([Location 1751](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1751)) > Bucu/ titi/ numbah ten/ steam and cream/ cacadao you GI/ locked, cocked and ready to rock/ General/ Private/ Colonel/ A Public Affairs Center without one Colonel of Truth in the whole building/ filthy urchins didimao-ing with the wallet of some dumb REMF (rear echelon mother fucker)/ bombard/ mutilate/ decimate/ annihilate/ pestilence/ horrific/ apocalypse/ assault/ patrol/ search and destroy/ DMZ/ LZ/ brass/ non-com/ TDY to Hell—temporary duty to oblivion/ offshore/ strafe/ bloop/ batter/ battle/ bombastic/ on-target/ catapult/ courageous/ dutiful/ obedient/ harsh/ insistent/ maimed/ blasted/ blown away/ barrage/ brigade/ grunt/ ground-pounder/ straight-leg/ frag/ flags/ DEROS/ short/ short time/ swagger stick/ punji stick/ NVA/ Cong/ Charlie/ slits/ slopes/ slanty-eyed motherfuckers/ gooks/ newby. Lifer! ([Location 1771](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1771)) > the States it was symbolism, but here it was happening. You couldn’t drop out in Nam, you were already dropped, and no matter what you dropped, you were already on the bottom. ([Location 1797](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1797)) > smoke Park Lanes ([Location 1816](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1816)) > Con Phuong, the Island of the Coconut Monk. ([Location 1824](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1824)) > the Mekong, composed of nine tributaries, was known as the River of the Nine Dragons. ([Location 1838](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1838)) > “For me, Vietnam was pretty much about drugs, music, dependency, and independency, self-awareness,” ([Location 1900](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1900)) > as FNGs (fucking new guys)— ([Location 1917](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1917)) > Gen. Colin Powell admitted that on his second tour of Vietnam he never slept in the same place two nights in a row, partly as a strategy to protect himself from his own troops. ([Location 1937](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1937)) > In 1969 and 1970 alone, GIs purchased nearly 500,000 radios, 178,000 reel-to-reel tape decks, and 220,000 cassette recorders. ([Location 1963](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1963)) > If we’d been hit … I was nowhere near where I was.” ([Location 2272](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=2272)) > I figured it out in a hole one day. The VC are fighting for poor people; the Vietnamese are poor; I’m poor; I’m on the wrong side.” ([Location 2280](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=2280)) > There is no dignity, no glory, in mud up to your ass with bullets overhead.” ([Location 2292](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=2292)) > “Vietnam turned, turned this whole country into that dark street,” Springsteen continued. “And unless we, unless we’re able to walk down those dark alleys and look into the eyes of the men and the women that are down there and the things that happened, we’re never gonna be able to get home and then it’s only a chance.” ([Location 3695](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=3695)) > African diaspora as a self-identified “root worker” and “cybergriot.” ([Location 3816](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=3816)) > blackinized, ([Location 3820](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=3820)) > ganja, ([Location 3838](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=3838)) > Dewey Canyon III ([Location 4007](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4007)) > War lasts long after the last bullet is fired; into old age and death we go carrying a secret knowledge that no one wants to know about. War is the opposite of sexual prowess. War is desire stripped of humanity. ([Location 4328](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4328)) > “When you do have to send people to war, these people have been tainted; they have been changed,” Barse said. “And they need a cleansing of some kind to be brought back into the tribal community.” ([Location 4355](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4355)) > 444th Underground Mess Kit Repair Battalion (mech), ([Location 4368](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4368)) > None of us cheat death. Ask any veteran of any war, and they will tell you one thing, this one true thing, death in war is a random thing. And therein lies the real horror of it. Its random nature is also the root stem of survivors’ guilt. ([Location 4405](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4405)) > I learned that letting go of anger and grief and guilt is an act of the will, not a function of passing time. ([Location 4410](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4410)) - Tags: [[favorite]] # We Gotta Get Out of This Place  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Doug Bradley, Craig Werner]] - Full Title:: We Gotta Get Out of This Place - Category: #books ## Highlights > Radio First Termer. ([Location 171](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=171)) > Music in Vietnam didn’t deliver a pre-ordained set of meanings to the troops. Rather, the songs afforded a set of overlapping fields for making, sharing, and at times rejecting meaning. ([Location 189](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=189)) > Acceptance or rejection of these songs and others was largely shaped by the three Ws—When you were there; Where you were; and What you did. ([Location 193](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=193)) > More than any other song, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” was the glue that held the improvised communities of Vietnam together then and a magnet bringing vets together today. “ ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place’ was our ‘We Shall Overcome,’ ” observed Bobbie Keith, who served as an Armed Forces Radio DJ in Vietnam from 1967 to 1969. ([Location 321](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=321)) > Kennedy had defeated Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the election of November 1960 by a mere 112,000 votes (0.17 percent), ([Location 538](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=538)) > “shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty”— ([Location 558](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=558)) > who launched the United States on a policy of, as George Donnelson Moss observed in Vietnam: An American Ordeal, “not trying to win in Vietnam; he was doing only enough not to lose.”7 ([Location 559](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=559)) > Hoa Mein Toy, Flowers of Our Land, was the name of it. ([Location 703](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=703)) > “The Ballad of the Green Berets” was the Vietnam anthem. But the more I heard the song, the more I compared it to what I was seeing in Vietnam. They didn’t square up. It was becoming less heroic. Now, rather than ringing true, the song rings hollow. ([Location 804](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=804)) > A large-scale survey in 1964 found that the single biggest reason for volunteering was to avoid being drafted; by 1968 the percentage of volunteers had dropped to 6.1 percent. ([Location 972](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=972)) > “To Promote the Maintenance of International Peace and Security in Southeast Asia,” a document which became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. ([Location 1010](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1010)) > United States, hundreds of thousands filled the streets during the Night of the Barricades in Paris, and the authorities murdered an unknown number of demonstrators during the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City. Opposition to the Vietnam War spread across the United States and Europe, massive demonstrations taking place in London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome. On the battlefield, the year was the bloodiest yet: more than 14,000 American soldiers were killed and in excess of 150,000 wounded. The number of Vietnamese casualties was at least ten times that high. ([Location 1040](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1040)) > There was Willie-Pete [white phosphorous] everywhere, a real ‘in-the-shit’ firefight, ass-kickin’ back-to-back by God jungle fightin’. But we stood up to ’em: mother fuckers, look out! We’re comin’ to put something on Mr. Charles, snuffing gooks. ([Location 1689](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1689)) > Saigon: where Ho meant an uncle, not a lover. ([Location 1751](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1751)) > Bucu/ titi/ numbah ten/ steam and cream/ cacadao you GI/ locked, cocked and ready to rock/ General/ Private/ Colonel/ A Public Affairs Center without one Colonel of Truth in the whole building/ filthy urchins didimao-ing with the wallet of some dumb REMF (rear echelon mother fucker)/ bombard/ mutilate/ decimate/ annihilate/ pestilence/ horrific/ apocalypse/ assault/ patrol/ search and destroy/ DMZ/ LZ/ brass/ non-com/ TDY to Hell—temporary duty to oblivion/ offshore/ strafe/ bloop/ batter/ battle/ bombastic/ on-target/ catapult/ courageous/ dutiful/ obedient/ harsh/ insistent/ maimed/ blasted/ blown away/ barrage/ brigade/ grunt/ ground-pounder/ straight-leg/ frag/ flags/ DEROS/ short/ short time/ swagger stick/ punji stick/ NVA/ Cong/ Charlie/ slits/ slopes/ slanty-eyed motherfuckers/ gooks/ newby. Lifer! ([Location 1771](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1771)) > the States it was symbolism, but here it was happening. You couldn’t drop out in Nam, you were already dropped, and no matter what you dropped, you were already on the bottom. ([Location 1797](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1797)) > smoke Park Lanes ([Location 1816](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1816)) > Con Phuong, the Island of the Coconut Monk. ([Location 1824](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1824)) > the Mekong, composed of nine tributaries, was known as the River of the Nine Dragons. ([Location 1838](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1838)) > “For me, Vietnam was pretty much about drugs, music, dependency, and independency, self-awareness,” ([Location 1900](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1900)) > as FNGs (fucking new guys)— ([Location 1917](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1917)) > Gen. Colin Powell admitted that on his second tour of Vietnam he never slept in the same place two nights in a row, partly as a strategy to protect himself from his own troops. ([Location 1937](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1937)) > In 1969 and 1970 alone, GIs purchased nearly 500,000 radios, 178,000 reel-to-reel tape decks, and 220,000 cassette recorders. ([Location 1963](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=1963)) > If we’d been hit … I was nowhere near where I was.” ([Location 2272](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=2272)) > I figured it out in a hole one day. The VC are fighting for poor people; the Vietnamese are poor; I’m poor; I’m on the wrong side.” ([Location 2280](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=2280)) > There is no dignity, no glory, in mud up to your ass with bullets overhead.” ([Location 2292](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=2292)) > “Vietnam turned, turned this whole country into that dark street,” Springsteen continued. “And unless we, unless we’re able to walk down those dark alleys and look into the eyes of the men and the women that are down there and the things that happened, we’re never gonna be able to get home and then it’s only a chance.” ([Location 3695](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=3695)) > African diaspora as a self-identified “root worker” and “cybergriot.” ([Location 3816](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=3816)) > blackinized, ([Location 3820](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=3820)) > ganja, ([Location 3838](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=3838)) > Dewey Canyon III ([Location 4007](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4007)) > War lasts long after the last bullet is fired; into old age and death we go carrying a secret knowledge that no one wants to know about. War is the opposite of sexual prowess. War is desire stripped of humanity. ([Location 4328](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4328)) > “When you do have to send people to war, these people have been tainted; they have been changed,” Barse said. “And they need a cleansing of some kind to be brought back into the tribal community.” ([Location 4355](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4355)) > 444th Underground Mess Kit Repair Battalion (mech), ([Location 4368](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4368)) > None of us cheat death. Ask any veteran of any war, and they will tell you one thing, this one true thing, death in war is a random thing. And therein lies the real horror of it. Its random nature is also the root stem of survivors’ guilt. ([Location 4405](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4405)) > I learned that letting go of anger and grief and guilt is an act of the will, not a function of passing time. ([Location 4410](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07CH9Y3RY&location=4410)) - Tags: [[favorite]]