'Waltzin Matilda' tragic saga of the universial soldier

Search and Destroy, Vietnam War, TET Offensive, 1968

photo by Mike Marcellino, copyright 2011

Make 'memorial day' universal and end the wars

by Mike Marcellno

First part of a series on Memorial Day

Memorial Day in America is five days away.  All of us should observe its meaning in some way, lasting all year round.  Maybe there should also be a universal Memorial Day that every nation observes.

Sometimes, some of the best stories happen by accident.  Today, as I thought of a song I wrote and recorded, "The Walls of Fire," an ode to American soldiers' sacrifice from the Civil War to Afghanistan, I went on You Tube to take a break.  Listening to one of my favorite bands, The Clash, do "I Fought the Law and the Law Won," music that helps me shake loose, up popped on the screen  "No Man's Land (Berlin, Germany).

"The Walls of Fire" on Reverbnation


Well, "No Man's Land" is a song about the carnage in World War I, written and sung by Eric Bogle, a Scottish folk singer songwriter who immigrated to Australia. I was surprised that Bogle was joined in singing the song by a German singer.  I have not yet discovered his name.

You see and hear the senseless killing, dying, slaughter, suffering in the music and music videos I will share with you from today through Memorial Day in America, Monday, May 30th.  I will also try and discover with your help the other "Memorial Days" in countries around the world.

And, yes, I will suggest that the people of the world create a universal day to honor those who sacrificed their lives, but also to see in our hearts and minds that this destruction of humanity should be ended.  Only the people of the world can do it.  Why?  Because it is the people of the world, not the leaders, who die in these wars.  I know that first hand as a Vietnam veteran.  I never forget the 58,000 American troops killed in Vietnam along with millions of Vietnamese.

As a student of history, a military veteran and someone who will never give up the idea that peace is possible, I wrote, recorded and perform on occasion, "The Walls of Fire."

I will share "No Man's Land" in a later segment of this series, but first here is another song written by Eric Bogle, "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda (1972)," even better known and often covered, by the likes of Joan Baez, among others.  The song is about the slaughter of Australian troops trying to storm the battlements of the Turkish army in World War I in Gallipoli, also the title of an award winning Australian film, directed by Peter Weir in 1981, starring Mel Gibson, Mark Lee and Bill Kerr.  I highly recommend it.  It won best film award by the Australian Film Institute, was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign film and should have won an Oscar.

At Gallipoli, in this single campaign, battle deaths on both sides totaled a staggering 130,784.

Some people viewed the song as relating to the Vietnam War, which ended after 10 years of fighting in 1975 (U. S. combat forces pulled out in 1973.)

"Waltzing Matilda" is an old bush ballad known as Australia's  unofficial national anthem.  It was written in 1895 by poet and nationalist Banjo Patterson.

Here is Eric's version of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda."  The video is moving and seems to have been done by a Canadian as there are Canadian troops shown near the end.  And, if you like, you may listen to "The Walls of Fire" in the music player on top of this page and visit our avant-garde poetry music band on ReverbNation.  Our band yesterday reached #46 among the Hot Folk Artists in the world, to a great extent due to the song of American soldiers in wars for the past 150 years, as we mark the anniversary of bloodiest of all our wars, the Civil War, brother fighting against brother.  Of course, if we are going to have peace we must end the inhumanity that breeds war.

'

"And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" by Eric Bogle 

Eric, 66, performed this spring at the Australian Folk Festival.

As I believe that music makes the world go round, music of war and peace, sacrifice and memorial days will be motivation for words and actions.

As I dearly love the music of Joan Baez and respect her activism for peace and justice, here is her version of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda."  In 1995 I had the pleasure to chat with her on a beautiful evening outdoors at the Cuyahoga Valley Folk Festival south of Cleveland.  I've included a photo I took of a young girl in the Vietnam War, which I gave to Baez on that occasion.  I welcomed her to Cleveland on behalf of the city as I was then an aide to the mayor.

"And the Band Waltzing Matilda" song by Joan Baez

"Oriental River" Vietnam War, 1968

photo by Mike Marcellino, copyright 2011

Joan Baez and my Oriental River girl

Oriental River, South Vietnam 1968 photo by Mike Marcellino, copyright 2010

Joan Baez and the Girl in the Oriental River

by Mike Marcellino

Twenty-seven years after I left the Vietnam War, after serving for a year 1967-68 as a U. S. Army combat correspondent and photojournalist, On August 20, 1995 I found myself seated in a campfire chair talking with Joan Baez, just as I would the girl next door.  I had listened to Joan's albums, attended concerts, one at the former Front Row Theatre with a moving circular stage.  I reviewed that concert for Sun Newspapers.

Darkness had set and it was quite outside Joan's tent in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park south of Cleveland where she had
performed for a Heritage Series Concert.  I thought back to listening over and over to "banks of the Ohio" my favorite Baez song.

As I worked as an aide to then Mayor Michael White,I came armed with  a proclamation, honoring Joan not only for her voice but her courageous opposition to the Vietnam War and support for human rights, all at great risk to her career.

Rather than an M-14 rifle, I carried to the concert a harmless treasure of seven hand printed black and white photographs I had taken of children caught in war.  One of the photographs shows  a young Vietnamese girl, smiling as she climbed out of the Oriental River balancing on a 155 mm shell casing and holding onto barbed wire.  It was June 1968, the year the TET offensive by the VC and North Vietnamese regular throughout the country never seemed to end.  I was following battery of 155 mm howitzers manned by the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 11th Artillery of the 23rd Artillery Group, my home base.

Again, I was in the middle of nowhere, alone and as almost always, without a weapon (or a toothbrush).  But I had my notebooks, pens and cameras to record it all in stories and photos for Stars and Strips, the Army Reporter and other publications. 

It was a bizarre scene in a bizarre war, one where the battle cry was often "The End" by The Doors.  It was hot and it appeared the nearby Vietnamese village had come down to the Oriental River for a swim, right in the middle of a war.  I was tempted but didn't join them in the murky river.  Nearby was a camp of the 5th Special Forces called Tra Cu, 23 miles west of Saigon.  I think they called this the Second Battle of Saigon.  We won both battles, as we did all the battles but lost the war as it was a civil war and the South Vietnamese leaders weren't very popular and the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong weren't about to ever give up.

I walked up to the door of the Special Forces hooch (a primitive house made of concrete block, wire screening and a tin roof).  A gruff looking sergeant told me to go away; it seems Special Forces isn't interested in publicity.

Joan Baez's first album, 1960, Vanguard (Wikipedia)

I knew the one she would pick, the young Vietnamese girl  climbing out of the Oriental River.  I hope Joan still has it. (I have a museum quality, hand printed framed version still, along with the other six, that includes U. S. Army artillerymen, the 33rd South Vietnamese Rangers on a search and destroy mission, an elite unit, and other children coping in war.
I always wonder what happened to the girl from the Oriental River.

i knew joan baez

by mike marcellino

i knew joan baez

joan baez.

i knew she would

pick

this

one,

her little sister.

joan baez

i knew she would

pick

this one.

she had a choice -

barbwire

or

bobbing 155 mm shell casing

on the Oriental River,

no number

rung sat zone

south, southeast of Saigon

the delta hell on earth,

special forces

say.

i knew joan baez

joan baez,

i knew she would pick this one,

like her little sister -

joan baez,

i knew joan baez.

i knew she would pick this one.
copyright Mike Marcellino 2010

Here one of my favorite songs of Joan Baez that fits the story pretty well - "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" (written by Bob Dylan).  This is a beautiful recording.

The official website of Joan Baez

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

i think that was Dylan
by Mike Marcellino

You could say I grew up with Bob Dylan, and the likes of Joan Baez, Carolyn Hester, Hamilton Camp, Buddy Holly and the Beach Boys.  Though I've owned more than a dozen of his albums, the ones that most influenced me in music, my own writing and political and social views were his first three - Bob Dylan (1962), The Freewheelin Bob Dylan (1964) and The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964) and John Wesley Harding (1967).


While I have not yet recorded "i think that was Dylan" you're invited to listen to my collection of 9 new lyrical poetry song recordings.  Some folks have compared my music to Dylan, though I don't sing, i talk, but then Dylan hardly does either.
Just click on this link to our Facebook music page where you may listen free, share our songs and "like" us. (or you may listen on the music player at the top of this blog)

Mike Marcellino's Facebook music page

It's hard to recall when I first listened to the folk songs of Robert Allen Zimmerman, raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, near the Mesabi Iron Range west of Lake Superior.  He was the grandson of Ukrainian and Lithuanian Jews, who escaped antisemitism in the early 1900s.

I've found very few albums in which I liked every song - Freewheelin' was such an album.  I liked Corina, Corina most and would listen to it over and over.  The times from 1963 to 1967 in Dylan's half century music career were turbulent. I listened to Dylan around the time of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, though time stood still as we sat glued to the television in a fraternity house on the campus of Wake Forest College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  I listen in my hooch at a base camp at the tip of the Viet Cong Iron Triangle stronghold northwest of Saigon in the Vietnam War.

Over the Dylan years, I've seen him in concert twice, the first probably the most memorable.  It was November 12, 1965 at Music Hall in Cleveland, Ohio.  Six weeks later, the day after New Year's I would leave on a train filled with Army recruits on the way to basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Our seats were red velvet, right in the middle, not far from the front, perfect seats.  I was with a very pretty blond,  Cindy.  I was in love with her and her sister, Gretchen.  Wonderful girls, Swedish.  Dylan played alone, with his guitar and harmonica, the first half of the concert.  It couldn't have been better.  He came on electric in the second half.  You could hear a pin drop.  Everyone was in shock.  He had earlier been booed off the stage after three songs when he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival. I though it was cool.  Still do, even though I was raised on the acoustic poet.

The second time I saw Dylan was at the concert for the opening celebration for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum on June 7, 1993.  He had lost most of his voice and Dylan and the night were both electric - romping around Cleveland Municipal Stadium with my ex-wife (who looked like a female version of Dylan) and our three children with nearly 80,000 screaming rock fans.  As I was on duty as an aide to the mayor, I had a seat in the sixth row for the ribbon cutting of the stunning building designed by I. M. Pei.  The spot lit structure's reflection on the waters of Lake Erie at night is still a sight.  Yoko Ono was there alone at the party after the ribbon cutting, John Lennon had been shot and killed December 8, 1980.

 "Search and Destroy" photo by Mike Marcellino, TET Offensive, Vietnam War, 1968.  After I was turned away from my request to meet with Dylan, I left a print of this photo at a studio in Cleveland where Dylan was recording or hanging out. Naturally, I did not get a thank you.


While Dylan was in Cleveland, I did try to meet with the icon, bringing some of my favorite photographs taken in the Vietnam War where I served as a combat correspondent and photojournalist.  I got as far as inside the door of the recording studio he was at in an eastern suburb, but no further.  I left Dylan this signed black and white photography of Army artillery forward observers with the 33rd Vietnamese Rangers on a search and destroy mission in the rice paddies.

Last year I got to thinkin' about the cover of the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan wrote a song about some crazy days I had spent roamin' the streets of New York City and wrote a song about those times.  Today on Gothamist.com I learned the story behind the cover art.  Bob Dylan wanted to recreate a photo of James Dean (see the link to Gothamist story) for the cover of "Freewheelin'" released May 23 1963.

New York City Album Art: The Freewheelin Bob Dylan 

  

Here's my version of the story in a poetry song I've performed.  The song was covered by Chicago folk singer Justin Boerema as we shared the stage at Spike Hill in Brooklyn. Justin was back lit in silhouette, wearing a Fedora, playing guitar and harmonica, real Dylanesque.  I hope to record the poetry song soon, perhaps on my trip to New York City in April.  I will be performing the song though and together we return  to The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. 

i think that was Dylan

by Mike Marcellino

i think that was Dylan,

walkin down Jones Street

girl in his arm

right in the middle of the slushy road,

right pretty too,

comin right at me,

so i ducked

down into the

alley

found sally

and wrote this piece.

"i didn't see you there,"

 - went something like that

i think that was Dylan

walkin down Jones Street

trouble was the cold,

blinded me,

so i parked my car,

a cutlass i believe,

recklessly

at the first illegal spot i could find

went up to the bar

"Irish whiskey,"

i said that,

it must ta been in '65

i think that was Dylan

walkin down Jones Street,

go ask Sally.

i think that was Dylan copyright by Mike Marcellino 2009   

dylan and baez poems

i think that was dylan
by Mike Marcellino

i think that was dylan

i think that was dylan,
walkin down 42nd street
girl in his arm
right in the middle of the slushy road,
right pretty too,
comin right at me,
so i ducked
down into the
alley
found sally
and wrote this piece

"i didn't see you there,"
- went something like that

i think that was dylan
walkin down 42nd street
trouble was the cold,
blinded me,
so i parked my car,
a cutlass i believe,
recklessly
at the first illegal spot i could find
went up to the bar
"Irish whiskey,"
i said that,
it must ta been in '65
i think that was dylan
walkin down 42nd street,
go ask Sally.

i think that was dylan copyright by Mike Marcellino 2009


i knew Joan Baez

i knew joan baez
joan baez.
i knew she would
pick
this
one,
her little sister.
joan baez
i knew she would
pick
this one.
she had a choice -
barbwire
or
bobbing 155 mm shell casing
on the Oriental River,

no number
rung sat zone
south, southeast of Saigon
the delta hell on earth,
special forces
say.
i knew joan baez
joan baez,
i knew she would pick this one,
like her little sister -
joan baez,
i knew joan baez.
i knew she would pick this one

Copyright by Mike Marcellino 2007

i think that was dylan & i knew joan baez copyright by Mike Marcellino 2007, 2008 & 2009