I've watched many war movies and a song that's played on the radio will remind me of that movie. I never served, tried for the RAF but found out I was color blind.

Anyway just wondered what songs remind you of being away from home and serving your country.

"We've Gotta Get Outta This Place"

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Old paratrooper in NC

The song which reminds me of serving in Vietnam is Witchita Lineman sung by Glenn Campbell. It was played a lot on armed forces radio. I cannot hear it without being reminded of tha time.

Any Christmas song, that was the worst time to be in another country away from family. Every time I hear one, it takes me back to less than pleasant times. I don't listen to those songs during the holidays if I can help it.

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Minimize the variables

One of Henry John Duchendorf, the Younger, finest-

'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Galveston was another good one by Glenn Campbell.
I was in the waiting area at SLC airport one time and Glenn
came through with his entourage trailing along behind him.

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In Omnia Paratus

"Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison. I was in love with a brown-eyed girl and she promised to wait for me. Seven months later, while I was in Nam, she married my good friend. She turned out to be a real shrew. Whenever I hear that song today, I thank my good buddy for sparing me a life of misery.

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A gun has no brain.. use yours

Second vote for "Leaving on a jet plane".

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"Your other right........."

" A Rainy Night in Georgia" while sitting in the rain watching flares at Ft. Benning Georgia .

Made it through Scout camp (USAF basic training) listening to America: A Horse With No Name. It was the only cassette I took to basic. One of the other guys had a player. We listened to it every Sunday afternoon while we cleaned the dorm.

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Wrangler of stray Chiefs
Bob

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Well, the time and place I was at there was no music in the background. How ever every since I saw the Vietnam movie, "Apocalypse Now" with Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando most anything by Credence Clear Water Revival will usually put me back on the beach at Chu Lai in the mid '60s

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Real men love cats!

My Vietnam song will always be, "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" by CCR.

"Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "The Letter" tie for summing up my 21 year career.

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

None whatever. The music was the same at home or in the USAF.

But in basic training, a lot of radios were playing some song about You got a hold on me.

Oh, wait: when I was stationed in Newfoundland, when the TV signed off at night, they played, O, Canada instead of, The Star-Spangled Banner. So, I guess that's a military memory.

The songs that instantly transport me back to Vietnam include "The Letter" by Joe Cocker, "If You're Going To San Francisco,"
by Scott McKenzie and "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by Peter, Paul and Mary."

If you were color blind in our country-they put you in an observation plane to spot camouflage!

You guys had music ??

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It's Alive !!

I thought "I Left My Heart in [APO] San Francisco" would be a shoe in for this question. Nick BTW: I did 3 tours and nothing takes me back like the sound of AK-47 fire!

Way too young for Viet Nam

I heard this song for the first time in a German apartment house in 1988 and to this day if it comes on the radio everything stops

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Retired Career Security Guard

This is the second song. It actually came out several years before I joined the Army and was a favorite of mine in high school. I was walking into a Mess Hall on Fort Carson and they were playing it on the oldies station. I felt like a relic

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Retired Career Security Guard

I-feel-like-I'm-fixin-to-die Rag / Country Joe & The Fish...kinda said it all for me.
Vinny
RVN 67-68

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"GUNS UP"

I was going to say this, but you beat me to it.

I was stationed in Holland for 2 years. I was there by myself and living in a house off base. It was across the street from a church and on Christmas eve the parishioners would stand outside and sing Silent Night at midnight.

It wasn't painful and I did enjoy my time over there, but I never saw any combat either. It did make me miss my family back in the states though.

This video fits:

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Freedom isn't free.

Louie,Louie, that and we gotta get outta this place were very popular with the #1 engineroom crew. Frank

Really anything by CCR. Fortunate son for sure.

Drove to town yesterday for the essentials. Heard this on my way home. Took me back to Ronald Reagan's "take down this wall" speech, the fall of the wall and after. I was stationed in Germany then. Vivid memories.

I visited Berlin after the wall fell. Little Turkish boys lined the street on the West Berlin side and were selling pieces of the wall. I rented one little guy's hammer and chisel and got my own.

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Wrangler of stray Chiefs
Bob

What year was you in Germany? My brother was in Darmstadt in 66 or 67, he didn't like it too much, beer was good though.

"Detroit City" by Bobby Bare.

'83 - '86 -- Sembach Air Base (east of Kaiserslautern)

'88 - '92 -- Ramstein Air Base (west of Kaiserslautern)

I loved it!

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Wrangler of stray Chiefs
Bob

Since a lot of folks are referencing Vietnam this seems appropriate

The Original "Good Morning Vietnam" - AFVN Radio - YouTube

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Retired Career Security Guard

The song "Kathy's Clown" from about 1960-61 seemed to always be playing whenever I went to town from my base, RAF Sculthorpe, Norfolk, England. Every time I hear it even today I think of going to the bar in Hunstanton, England or King Linn.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

My first night in basic training (USCG, 1980) was the end of a long 18+hr day, brutal and depressing. (We were one of the last classes they could put hands on, and they KNEW it, and they abused us)

They played John Denver, "Country Roads" over the PA after lights out.

Not a dry eye in the house.

I always remember that night and song in the same thought.

There were several tunes that left an impression on me. Just now as I looked at this thread I was remembering being at sea-tac waiting to get on the plane for Nam. We had just watched that part of "Patton" where Geo. C. Scott gives the speech to the troops-you know the one. And I was hanging around waiting and found a juke box and played "Lay lady lay" by Dylan about 3 times in a row. That and the Fifth dimension song about "one child born to carry on." I was pretty much ready after that, if I wasn't before. When we took off, the very cool pilot went inland and flew all the way around the mountain/volcano-hood or shasta, which ever it is, and said over the intercom,"this is what you're fighting for, and basically said some very encouraging things to a stone silent plane load of Joes. What he did was far better than the Army's lame movie clip-good movie that it was. They could have at least had a live person say SOMETHING. But that's JMO. Other songs while in country would be "Bayou Country" by CCR "green, green grass of home" 'The letter" leavin on a jet plane-House of the rising son-which the Vietnamese loved-and much more. Still great music. I wonder what the kids of this era will listen to when they are old farts? There was a time my friends....

Oh, yeah, man. Don't you watch war movies? Gotta have that theme music.

When I was on the flight leaving Vietnam, I put on the headphones as I watched the shoreline disappear and Lola was playing. Still gives me goose bumps when I hear it.

Yes! I know what the song was about, but that's the song that was playing .

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Vietnam 1969-1971

I don't really equate any particular song or piece of music with my time in the Air Force. But...there is one song that always takes me back to Basic.

Every time we started our GI party, someone broke out a boom box, and the first song I remember hearing was Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good". It also seemed as though it played every single time, and I think sometimes multiple times, when we were having our "party", and plenty of other times when we were allowed to have radios on.

Between the constant repetition, and the thought of how "good" my life was at that moment...I kinda grew to hate that song.

Tim

I don't remember any music in boot ('68), but during various other training we put on S&G's Sound of Silence every night.

After I got married, Leaving On A Jet Plane became "our" song.

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Semper Vigilantes

My first deployment with the 'bees was to Rosey Roads, PR. The Uriah Heep album "Demons & Wizards" was in heavy rotation in the hootches with tie dyed curtains and mysterious circular pieces missing from the screens.

In A school we had a tendency to stay awake for long periods of time... studyin' ya know...

"San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers In Your Hair)". Kind of a dorky song but for some reason it resonated with me over there. Still does.

Plus I was sort of fond of SFR; I was stationed at Beale AFB prior to going overseas, and got there a few times. The old SFR Gun Exchange was still going strong in '66.

Now--a long time ago in a galaxy far away...

Monday Monday.

LTC

The Golden Slumbers medley. The Beatles, Abbey Road side 2. Whenever I hear it, I'm right back in-country.

I still look for the source of rotating wings slapping air. Songs, not so much.

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God, Country, Family

We sang this on the airliner flying into Da Nang. That was my first tour there, the second tour we did not sing. I did make a point of listening to Wolfman Jack whenever I could.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

I've seen fire and I've seen rain sung by James Taylor

CCR...Creedence Clearwater Revival - Run Through The Jungle - Vietnam war - YouTube

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Life is short,live it fully.