Ballad of the Green Berets

I fully admit to my love-hate relationship with the History Channel. This morning rather than ranting about the errors and dumbing down of history, I have to give them a thumbs up for their "This Day in History" newsletter. This morning they included a couple of articles that I enjoyed, both about the Vietnam era.

The first was a reminder that today in 1971, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (the Blackhorse) departed Vietnam. The Regiment, minus the 2nd Squadron who stayed in Vietnam for another year, redeployed to Germany. They would spend the next 21 years there patrolling the East German border. If you have read this blog for a while then you know I'm intimately familiar with that part of the unit's history.

The second item that caught my attention was that on this day back in 1966 Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler hit #1 on the charts with his song "Ballad of the Green Berets." I loved this song when I was in elementary school, listening to it over and over again on my parents' 8-track. When my daughter wanted desperately to sleep in and be late to school, I would wake her up by singing this song at the top of my lungs. What kid could sleep through that? I went to YouTube and found a copy to share with you:

What I liked about History Channel's treatment of this was that they pointed out that when this song hit number one, there was still wide spread support for America's involvement in Southeast Asia. The first song that could be called an anti-war song to gain popularity was "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield that did not come out until 1967. I didn't recognize the title either, but you know it too: "Everybody stop, hey, what's that sound?" I went back to YouTube and found a copy of that as well:

So it made me think that you could use the Billboard Chart of popular music to track popular support for the war in Vietnam. In March of 1966 a "pro military" song goes to number one and is the best selling song of the year, while there are no "anti-war" songs on the charts. The next year, an "anti-war" song appears on the charts and becomes one of the songs most associated with the Vietnam era? Call me a geek, but I thought that was fascinating. Popular culture meets military and political history.

History of the Labrador Retriever

Did you know that the Labrador Retriever did not come from Labrador? Actually, the dogs originated in Newfoundland. The fishermen of the island used a type of dog they called a "St. John's" dog that would dive in the water to retrieve lost fishing gear. The dog became coveted by hunters of waterfowl and the next thing you know some well-to-do English types had taken some of the dogs to Great Britain to breed as hunting dogs. To distinguish from the larger "Newfoundland" breed of dog, the Brits started calling the St. John's dogs "Labrador dogs." Hey, both islands are in Canada, right?

As you know, my main interest is military history.  But on occasion I like to go do something different.  So for the Thinky Tees store I wrote a brief history of the Labrador Retriever. (I actually appreciated the break from an article on U.S. Navy destroyers I'm working on.) Go read the long version, it turned out to be a really fascinating story. I enjoyed learning where and how our most popular breed of dog came to be.

Book Recommendation:

Along those same lines of "doin' somethin' differnt," I went back the other day and re-read a book that we used in one of my college classes. I had liked it so much in school that when I ran across it on the shelf in the local library I had to check it out and read it again. In Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940: How Americans Lived Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression author David E. Kyvig reviews the advent of incredible technologies that we take for granted today. It's a fascinated read where you'll discover when household electricity became readily available.  With it came an incredible age of technological innovation that brought to your home everything from items that ushered in social change, like the radio, to what we now consider mundane conveniences, like washing machines and vacuum cleaners. I absolutely give it five stars. ;-)