Thursday, April 17, 2025
Time: 6:05 PM
Song: Ballad of the Green Berets
Artist: Sgt. Barry Sadler
Mode of Consumption: Listening to vinyl Ballad of the Green Berets & Songs
of America’s Fighting Men
Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0yjNmllr3Ew6f97TqPuEqa?si=99c4f751e27d4b6a
The title track concludes, a song Jodi and I both know well. The tracks continue on this
chest-thumping, patriotic collection. Here are a few of the titles from this
1966 release:
- When This Cruel War is Over
- The U.S.A.
- L.B.J. and Liberty
“Well, this is a
little different than listening to ‘Hair’.” Jodi said. Then she starts singing
“Initials,” from the soundtrack of the acclaimed hippie play from 1968.
These two records
prove something that people today don’t want to admit. This country has been divided
for a long time. It would be too easy to say that it started in the 1960s and
the division caused by the Vietnam War.
When you really look
at history, you know it’s not so simple as that.
Read Kerouac and he
shows that there was counterculture pushing against the establishment in the
1950s, and the establishment was pushing back.
Read “The Grapes of
Wrath,” and you get a pretty good sense there was division in the country then
between the “Haves” and the “Have Nots.” The displaced farmers of the dust bowl
treated as lower class as they traversed the country looking for work.
Jim Crow.
Reconstruction. The Civil War.
The list goes on.
This country is many
things, but the notion of being united has always been a myth. It’s a
congregation of thoughts, beliefs and ideas often pushing against each other
rather than melting into a pot.
So, look around, and
think it’s never been like this, and be comforted that it’s more like that it’s
always been this way.
Either way, keep in
mind, this too will pass.
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