Dear Sister Peggy,
Greetings from Cape Cod! My name is Joe Bangert, and I eyed your name on the email list from an email I received today from a mutual friend- Barbara Dane- and was motivated to introduce myself to you and tell you- apart from my love of both you and your brother's musical and artistic contributions to at least three generations of my family- how gratified I am to share with you my deep admiration of Ewan's 'Ballad of Ho Chi Minh'.
Sure I learned it by heart- after returning home from my stint as a door gunner on a Marine helicopter in Quang Tri, Viet Nam circa 1969. Six months later I upped and joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and later met Barbara in Paris at the World Assembly for the Peace and Independence of the Indochinese Peoples at Versailles. We had a great banquet with the diplomatic delegations of both the DRVN and the PRGSVN and later some music began- Barbara sang the 'Song of the Coats' and the only song the young boisterous delegation from the USA could all agree on singing together by heart when asked to sing 'an American worker's song' was "Mercedes Benz" by Janis Joplin.
Barbara then asked me to join her on the stage- for I had boldly decided to wear a close fitting shirt which had emblazened on the front of it- the flag of the National Liberation Front of south Viet Nam.
It was then that I belted out both "We Will Liberate the South" (Giai Phong Mien Nam) the national anthem of the NLF in Vietnamese- for I am a linguist- and ended that portion of the show with the Ballad of Uncle Ho. It was a show stopper to say these least-
Since then I have sang Ewan's delightful song over one thousand times indeed- and when I was working back in Viet Nam, in Ha Noi from 1992-1997 I had the occasion to sing it and teach it to virtually thousands upon thousands of younger Vietnamese boys and girls-
I always give Ewan the credit for penning it. I just wanted you to know that this song rocks even in 2002~!
Best Regards,
Joe Bangert
******
Songs of Protest
By Bill Homans
It was my old VVAW brother Joe Bangert, who, with me, was to provide the VVAW presence at the big gig. Joe is cutting-edge hardcore; he spent five years in the 1990s living with the Vietnamese in Hanoi. That's right, y'all, the Vietnamese. Not the "North" or "South" Vietnamese; the Vietnamese. You remember that old expression from the 'Nam, "It don't mean nothin'"? Well, thirty-some years later, it does mean something. That, at least, we can say we accomplished, brothers: Vietnam is one country again. Right on.
Bill Homans, AKA Watermelon Slim, was Massachusetts state coordinator for VVAW in 1971-74. His 1973 album, "Merry Airbrakes," was the only album ever to be released by a Vietnam veteran during the war. Homans' latest CD is "Big Shoes to Fill"; samples and more information can be found at www.friedokrajones.com.
Photo of The Vietnam Songbook and more...
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:p1nDEK-82c4J:www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/%3Fid%3D358+Joe+Bangert&hl=en
GOING BACK--Part 5
copyright © 1994 by Valerie Schumacher, all rights reserved
Joe Bangert can't stay away from Vietnam either. He's been back to Vietnam more often than Danny, ten times in nine years. He has a wife and kids back home in New England. I wonder when the time will come when he won't go home at all.
"From the ice paddies to the rice paddies," he joked.
"When were you there?" I asked.
There? I was sitting in Hanoi when I asked him that question. Vietnam was here, not there. There was the war. Here was Vietnam.
snip
Joe grew to like the Vietnamese, really like them. That's one reason why he keeps returning today. In an odd twist of fate, or perhaps no twist at all, Joe now works in aviation in Vietnam, the same work he did during the war for the American military. He got back to Vietnam with the first group ever issued tourist visas and was caught by Geoffrey Clifford's camera lens hugging the enemy he never felt was his enemy. Back at home, I came face to face with Joe once again while flipping through Clifford's book on photographs on Vietnam. I'd had the book for ages, long before I ever considered going to Vietnam, long before I ever knew Clifford or Bangert, or knew they were friends. Vietnam makes a small world grow smaller.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:aY1aF76FRTEJ:grunt.space.swri.edu/valret5.htm+Joe+Bangert&hl=en