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None But The Brave

I listened to 'None But The Brave' not the song, the podcast by Flynn Mclean & Hal Schwartz with guest Jon Pont.  Sooner or later I figured they'd have to review this show.  Not just becuase it's a great show and a great cause but what the heck... they named their Blog 'None But The Brave'. 

This show always hits me close to my heart.  I had my selective service card and was draft eligible in 1970, the war ended in 1975.  My cousin and my uncle were sent to Vietnam. Friends and others I knew were also drafted.  My lottery number was high.  I didn't have to go.  Instead I started college in 1971.  That's why this show resonates with me so deeply.

I have every available bootleg from this date and have listened to them all, some a lot more than others.  I have an original poster from this show.  I thought I knew everything about this show.  I realize now I did not.

Over time and through the years, we put memories aside for new memories and even though we haven't quite forgotten those great moments... sometimes we need a prod or two to bring them back.

Well this pod was the prod!  It succeeded in bringing back quite a few of those memories.  So no matter how big a fan you are or if you know this show inside and out...give this podcast a listen.  I highly recommend it.  ☆☆☆☆☆  

https://podcasts.google.com/?f...eW4uY29tL3Jzcw%3D%3D

____________________________________

The SPL Rocks!

Prego che tu stia danzando con San Pietro alle porte perlacee del cielo





Pulled up to my house today
Came and took my little girl away!
Giants Stadium 8/28/03



Oats

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March/April 2016

“Saved by the Boss: How Bruce Springsteen Rescued Vietnam Veterans of America—and the Vietnam Veterans Movement”

How Bruce Springsteen Rescued Vietnam Veterans of America—and the Vietnam Veterans Movement

BY MARC LEEPSON

© Neal Preston/CorbisNear the end of his sold-out concert January 29 in Washington, D.C., rock and roll legend Bruce Springsteen told the crowd of more than 18,000 that he had some special guests in the audience, a group of veterans from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Then he recognized another veteran in the house: Bobby Muller.

It was altogether fitting and proper that Springsteen—the hard-rocking, 66-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician, singer, and songwriter—recognized Muller, the founder and first president of Vietnam Veterans of America. That’s because Springsteen has been a strong supporter of Vietnam veterans and VVA for more than thirty-five years.

“Strong,” in fact, barely describes Springsteen’s commitment to VVA and the men and women who served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. That’s because in 1981, three short years after the organization was founded, when VVA was at a financial crisis point and about to go under, Bruce Springsteen stepped in and saved the organization.

“In those early years it was always hand to mouth,” said John Terzano, who ran VVA’s Washington, D.C., office in the early 1980s. “Figuring out how to pay our bills was a constant problem. We had to go months without paying the rent, and had numerous conversations about shutting down. We were in extra dire straits.”

“We were hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt,” Muller said. “I’m in my [New York] office and I’m preparing to close down the organization [and] I get a call.” On the line: Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen’s manager. Landau told Muller that Springsteen “was interested in Vietnam vets and you seem like the guy” to talk to. He invited Muller to see Springsteen perform the next night, July 3, 1981, at the Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey. After the show—he was blown away—Muller and Springsteen met and talked.

The upshot: Springsteen gave a benefit concert the next month in Los Angeles. That concert, on August 20, 1981, at the L.A. Memorial Sports Arena, sold out. Afterward, Bruce Springsteen presented VVA a check for $100,000, “a staggering sum of money,” as Muller put it.

The money “gave us a new breath of life. We were saved,” Terzano said. “It didn’t pay all of our bills, but gave us the shot and hope we needed. The only reason we survived is because Bruce came around in 1981.” What’s more, Springsteen’s generosity “opened the door, and Pat Benatar and Charlie Daniels” gave VVA benefit concerts the following month.

“It was our first foray into the musical arena,” Terzano said. “When you get a celebrity involved it opens so many doors, especially educating people and reaching more people. Plus, Bruce became a very close personal friend of Bobby and helped us out over the years. He gave us well over a hundred thousand dollars. It was an organization saver.”

If “it wasn’t for Bruce coming forward,” Muller said, “there would not have been a coherent, national movement on behalf of Vietnam vets.” VVA “became the national group, the only national group, with a [congressional] charter.”

© Neal Preston/Corbis


THE 1981 CONCERT

Bruce Springsteen came out on the Memorial Sports Arena stage on August 20 and walked up to the microphone. “Tonight we’re here for the men and the women who fought in the Vietnam War,” he said—a war that “turned this whole country into a dark street. Like at night when you just want to get home and out of the corner of your eye you see somebody gettin’ hurt and you keep walking on because it don’t have nothing to do with you. Unless we’re able to walk down those dark alleys and look into the eyes of the men and the women that are down there and the things that happened, we’re never going to be able to get home.

“There’s a lot of guys here tonight [he had invited a group of disabled Vietnam veterans] that had to live it and live it every day. And there’s a lot of guys that made it home to America and died and didn’t make it down here tonight.” He then introduced Bobby Muller, who steered his wheelchair onto the stage.

“It’s a great night for Vietnam veterans,” Muller said. “Very simply, there was a lot of controversy and there was a lot of pain surrounding the tragedy of Vietnam. And because of that a lot of people have tried to forget it and pretend that it never happened.

“That doesn’t do much for the families of the 55,000 Americans that were killed in Vietnam. It doesn’t do much for the 300,000 that were wounded fighting that war. But tonight is the first step in ending the silence that has surrounded Vietnam.”

Muller then spoke of veterans’ advocates who “have worked so hard for these years all over the country” on behalf of Vietnam veterans. He finished with these words:

“It’s a little bit ironic, after the years that we’ve been trying, when the businesses haven’t come behind us and the political leaders have failed to rally behind us and [when] you remember the divisions within our own generation about the war, that it ultimately turns out to be the very symbol of our generation—rock and roll—that brings us together.

“And it is rock and roll that is going to provide the healing process that everybody needs. So let’s not talk about it, let’s get down to it, let’s rock and roll.”

The audience cheered loudly, and Springsteen and his E Street Band launched into Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain.” The reviewer for Rolling Stone magazine said Springsteen and company “transformed” that song “into a majestic call to arms” on behalf of Vietnam veterans.

It “set the tone for the night,” Terzano said. “It was very haunting and very emotional.” It also sounded the note that saved Vietnam Veterans of America.

Bobby Muller is quoted from a long interview in We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (University of Massachusetts Press) by Doug Bradley and Craig Werner. See the review here.

____________________________________

The SPL Rocks!

Prego che tu stia danzando con San Pietro alle porte perlacee del cielo





Pulled up to my house today
Came and took my little girl away!
Giants Stadium 8/28/03



Oats

Thanks for posting this, Oats. I'm looking forward to listening to the podcast. Maybe this will help push Nugs to release the show if they have it. It has to be the number one requested show by fans.

I also got lucky with a 306 lottery number. I had good friends who weren't so lucky, one at 12 and the other at 25. One was set to take a year off of college, but stayed because of the student deferment. I will never forget the day the draft was abolished my senior year in college. I was sharing the upper floor of this large house with both of those friends. I heard a very loud scream in the room next door and then my door was flung open and he burst in the room saying the draft was abolished. We didn't get any more studying done that day while consuming large amounts of alcohol and pot.


 

"I've done my best to live the right way"

The big moment I remember about the draft was this.  My best friend, he still is, we were dating sisters.  My girlfriend was playing high school basketball in Garfield, NJ. We lived in the neighboring town, Saddle Brook. Me, him and his girlfriend, now wife, went to watch my girlfriend play.  In the middle of the game the girls mother comes running into the gymnasium.  She was excited and crying, her face all red.  We thought someone died.  She told us we weren't going and told us our numbers which had been announced minutes before.  A great and strong woman.  She's been in our lives ever since and is still going strong.

What's funny is I remember that like it was yesterday but I never remember my number.  I have to look it up if I want to know.  My buddy, he remembers his. lol

____________________________________

The SPL Rocks!

Prego che tu stia danzando con San Pietro alle porte perlacee del cielo





Pulled up to my house today
Came and took my little girl away!
Giants Stadium 8/28/03



Oats

Last edited by Oats

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