Bring 'em home

Well, since Johnny Cash is in the spotlights lately, and since the comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam are becoming more accepted, I thought it might be appropriate to tramp out one of my earliest posts:



Johnny Cash gave a concert in 1969 right after singing a tribute to the men who died at the Alamo:

Everywhere we go these days, it seems like, all of a sudden, reporters and people will ask us questions -- ask us questions about things that they didn't use to ask. It seems like everyone's concerned about our national problems, about the war in Vietnam -- as we have long been. And they say things like, "How do you feel about the Vietnam situation, the war in Vietnam?"

I'll tell you exactly how I feel about it. This past January we took our entire show, along with my wife June, we went to Long Bien Air Force Base near Saigon. And--

(loud cheering from the crowd)

And a reporter friend of mine asked, said, "That makes you a hawk, doesn't it?" And I said, "No, that don't make me a hawk. No. No, that don't make me a hawk."

(more cheering, not as loud)

But I said, "If you watch the helicopters bring in the wounded boys, then you go into the wards and sing for 'em and try to do your best to cheer them up so that they can get back home, it might make you a dove with claws."

(wild cheering)

And then he sings a peacenik folk song, "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream."

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2003/09/you_wonder_why.shtml

Later, Cash remarked:

As far as the war in Vietnam is concerned, that war just made me sick. I’m not supporting that war or any other war... Maybe Vietnam has taught us a hard lesson to not be involved in foreign wars. Maybe that’s the lesson we’ve learned. I hope we have.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/oct2003/obit-o02.shtml

Hats off to Mark T. for playing Johnny's remarks on WTUL's Folk Show.