Music: Your flavor of the month?

Just a remark you can feel free to take or leave alone, but I never heard Vietnam called Nam when I was over there in '68. I only heard Vietnam. Others may have called it that, I don't know, but I never heard it.

Edit:
A truly useless bit of trivia.

 

1968?...were you there and/or involved with the Tet Offensive?


Anyway, One good bit of useless trivia deserves another;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam

 

1. Yes, we endured about four rocket attacks per week. We had lots of yellow alerts and several red alerts. I was jumpy every time I heard a siren when I got back because radar would pick up the rockets and alert us with a loud siren that I got used to. I can't tell you how many times I had to jump out of my bunk late at night in DaNang, slip on some boots without tying the boot laces, grab a helmet, grab my rifle and get ammunition in the bunker. We all looked silly in our bunkers wearing just our boxers, unlaced boots and a steel pot on our heads. There was 50 cal. American machine gun action about a quarter mile from us. I was scared shitless when they sent me up a guard tower with a can of M60 ammo. There were three or four other guys in the tower but they were all so exhausted that they were sound asleep on the plywood floor. Nobody hit our guard tower that night, no doubt because they got a glimpse of this vicious GI drooping over an M60;
2. People here may have said Nam and maybe others said Nam, but I never heard it.
I was only briefly in the Saigon suburb of Cholon and briefly in Cam Rhan Bay. Finished my time there on Monkey Mountain.

 

I lost a lot of friends over there. Most of the ones I knew who came back were never the same again, emotionally or physically. Like I've said, my Dad was a career military man and I was prepared to enlist but decided to wait and see what my lottery number ended up being. I figured that if it was low I would enlist but I got lucky I suppose because they drew my birthday on # 348.

 

I was 359 and was going to join the Navy if I got a low number.
That was 1969

 

Same here...Dad was a career Navy man and they had cjust come out with the "Father-Son" plan, which meant you could enlist and be stationed and the same Naval Base as your Father...and he had just gotten his orders for his last tour of duty, Key West NAS...Key West sounded great to me as did Mom's cooking. But once I found out what my lottery number was, I decided "Nah, I'm gonna get married" which was a dumb decision at 18 years of age. In some ways, in retrospect, I sometimes wish I had enlisted.

 

Saw Ten Years After in concert and Alvin Lee is one of the best rock/ blues guitarists of all time. The guy is amazingly fast. His death was very sad as it was suppose to be a fairly routine surgery.

This was one of my favorite tunes by him. Leo Lyons strumming away on the base was always fantastic as well.

 

Hah, my number was 20, but fortunately the draft was not reinstated and on to college I went.

By the way, how's the knee doing?

 

I’m doing pt and will use a crutch for another week than Cain for a month or so.
It’s still painful at times so ice and elevate helps. Don’t like the Pain meds but I do use them on occasion to help with sleep.
It will be 3 weeks Monday so Im making good progress. Thanks for asking Cup!

 

My number was irrelevant. I was drafted before they had a lottery. They started that damn lottery about two months before I got out.

 

My brother in law who was 5 years older than me and graduated from high school in 67, and was drafted, often referred to it as Nam.

 

Great, nobody I knew did.
He was younger than me and probably served over there somewhat later so maybe things changed.

 

I was merely pointing out that Nam was used by people I knew and as far as age goes he would have been 71 this December so age is very similar and would have been there around the same time as he went in the service shortly after high school.

 

I recall Nam was commonly used during mid to late sixties.

 

People keep replying with some anecdote about 'Nam' when all I said was that I never heard the expression while I was over there. I went on to say that never having listened to everyone over there I realize that others may have said that. I was never even in the Southern part of South Vietnam so maybe it was a common expression there.
I appreciate people expressing anecdotes of others saying 'Nam' but why is it told as replies to me and my continued expression that I never heard it over there?

 

I believe that and I may have heard it over here. I just don't have any recollection of hearing it over there. Could it have been said there? I never denied that. I only said that I never heard it over there.
Your statement is in response to cup which I find perfectly acceptable, as if you needed my approval (you don't).

 

Lanny
I’m sure you’re right that it wasn’t used over there, I think it was born out of the Haight Ashbury period, even though Country Joe used Viet Naam

 

Like Jazz? Like Dixieland Jazz? You'll love this. Listen to this until you get to the sax and you'll fall in love with it. If you don't then you don't like Jazz.

youtube

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band with Dr. John - It's All Over Now

 

I have a jazz compilation cd for my ride and this is the opening tune which is always in my head ...masterpiece

 

Ron Eschete was one of my teachers at GIT many moons ago. A phenomenal 7-string guitarist and a really fun guy to hang out with.