When the flag waving stops

Ross over at The Gazetteer has an interesting question: Who will write the song about our kids' experience in Kandahar?

It came about as a result of this post when Ross pointed out that one of the most popular songs in Australia is Khe Sanh, a pub rock song written in the late 1970s about an Australian Vietnam veteran (and conscript) who receives no help adjusting to life after returning to Australia.

There is a curiosity associated with the song. No Australians, with the exception of close support bomber crews from 2 Sqn, RAAF, were involved in the siege of Khe Sanh. The base was manned by US Marines and any Australians there would have had to have been members of the USMC.

In any case, the song became wildly popular and is now considered an Australian cultural piece and a pub classic. Whenever it is played virtually everyone sings along and it seems every Aussie knows the words. When it was first released the Australian censors classified it unsuitable for air play and it was banned from radio. An Adelaide radio station defied the ban and the song became wildly popular.

Wars, particularly protracted conflicts, tend to generate a form of folk music for that era. The Great War and the 2nd World War certainly spawned a lot of music. Korea, for some reason, didn't seem to have the same basis to produce wartime specific music or even protest songs. Vietnam became the petrie dish of a steady stream of service specific songs but particularly anti-war and protest songs.

The thing is, if some sharp young Canadian does write a song about Afghanistan, it will likely be much like Khe Sanh and Springsteen's Born In The USA: Laments of things gone wrong.

You can hear Khe Sanh at The Gazetteer.