Kellie Pickler is in Afghanistan for Christmas, again.  This is her seventh USO tour.  It is quite clear that Kellie Pickler is a very special person.  So I have decided to award her the “Golden Pickler Award.”  God Bless Kellie Pickler.  We need more like her.

Kellie Pickle reminded me of another singer.  It was Christmas Day, 1969, Pleiku AB.  My day started, just like any other day, with a 0400 takeoff on a combat mission. It ended with a rocket attack.   It wasn’t a particularly good day.  But that night, in a crowded club full of enlisted men, I witnessed a miracle.  There was a female singer from Australia.  She had entertained for the troops in World War II, so she looked pretty old to us.  We weren’t expecting much.  Then she started singing the same songs she had performed so many years before.  The room fell into hushed silence.   By the time she was done there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.  Her voice was incredible, but it was a lot more than that.  Every man in that room would have preferred to be somewhere else.   The most popular song in that club on any other night was “I Wanna Go Home.”  We felt more than a little abandoned by the American people.  By singing those old songs this woman reminded of us a time when troops actually were supported back home.  She reminded us of the way it was and the way it should have been.  It touched my soul.

This was the year of Woodstock.  I don’t know what Woodstock meant to you, but to me it was about a million people, stoned on sex, drugs and alcohol having a great time bad mouthing those of us fighting for them in Vietnam.  The World War II vets got Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas.”  We got Country Joe McDonald and “Feel Like I’m Fixin To Die:”

Well come on all of you big strong men, 
Uncle Sam needs your help again,
He got himself in a terrible jam,
Way down yonder in Vietnam,
Put down your books and pick up a gun,
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun

And its 1,2,3 what are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn,
The next stop is Vietnam,
And its 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
WHOOPEE we’re all gonna die

Our own generation had turned on us.  At best, we were considered losers.  At worse, war criminals.  The contrast with those songs from World War II could not have been starker.

When we did get home, it was even worse.  World War II movies are about heroes and great battles.  Vietnam movies are about drug crazed psychotic murderers.   The heroes chosen by our generation were veterans of the anti-war movement like Bill Clinton and John Kerry.  They got it very wrong.  The real heroes of our generation have their names etched in Granite on the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

It has gotten better.  At least the liberal left now blames everything on George Bush instead of the troops.  In addition, even Vietnam Veterans are getting more recognition. It is no longer unusual for me to have someone thank me for my service.   When Vietnam veterans greet one another we often say: “welcome home”  instead of  “thank you for your service.” Now you know why.

I now realize, after all those years, that the Australian woman singing for us in Pleiku understood all along.  I don’t even know her name, but I will always be grateful.

TDM