VIETNAM IN 1969: A true story

 |   |  <1 min read

VIETNAM IN 1969: A true story

In 1969, as an 18-year old, I went to Vietnam.

Not to fight of course, but as a short-term "tourist".

It was a brief event in a long life but confirmed for me even at that early age that here was a war which could not be won by traditional military means. I thought the same of various countries in the Middle East when I flew over them some decades later.

A few years ago I was invited to speak on radio about Vietnam, a country I went back and visited properly in '95 (the year after it was opened up for tourism, and there were damn few of us) and then again in '97.

It was an Anzac Day programme so my recollections are peppered with music of the Vietnam era.

The programme is here

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Something Elsewhere articles index

10 UNUSUAL ECM ALBUMS OF THE EIGHTIES I OWN (2019): But there's no pattern to the pattern . . .

10 UNUSUAL ECM ALBUMS OF THE EIGHTIES I OWN (2019): But there's no pattern to the pattern . . .

When Manfred Eicher founded his record label ECM (Editions of Contemporary Music) in 1969 it was, he told Elsewhere in a 1992 interview, with a view to recording jazz at the same high quality... > Read more

BIEBER FEVER (2010): In defense of cheap pop

BIEBER FEVER (2010): In defense of cheap pop

Police. Security. Screams. A singer comes to town. Because I've spent the past week immersed in a collection of essays and rants entitled Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, I'm a bit... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

COLIN McCAHON IN MELBOURNE: Context is everything (2001)

COLIN McCAHON IN MELBOURNE: Context is everything (2001)

It can happen anywhere: in Miami you hear OMC's How Bizarre, on late-night television in London Smash Palace turns up, in a Japanese park you come across Maori carvings, in Hong Kong a woman is... > Read more

ERROL SCORCHER AND THE REVOLUTIONARIES: RASTAFIRE, CONSIDERED (1978): A long life after his death

ERROL SCORCHER AND THE REVOLUTIONARIES: RASTAFIRE, CONSIDERED (1978): A long life after his death

Jamaican DJ Errol Scorcher (born Errol Archer in the parish of St Catherine in 1956) wasn't much known outside of the hardcore reggae audience in the world beyond his homeland. However back in... > Read more