We Gotta Get Out of This Place Audiobook By Doug Bradley, Craig Werner cover art

We Gotta Get Out of This Place

The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War

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We Gotta Get Out of This Place

By: Doug Bradley, Craig Werner
Narrated by: Sean Runnette
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For a Kentucky rifleman who spent his tour trudging through Vietnam's Central Highlands, it was Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". For a "tunnel rat" who blew smoke into the Viet Cong's underground tunnels, it was Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze". For a black marine distraught over the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., it was Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools". And for countless other Vietnam vets, it was "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die", "Who'll Stop the Rain", or the song that gives this book its title. In We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Doug Bradley and Craig Werner place popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam. They explore how and why US troops turned to music as a way of connecting to each other and the World back home and of coping with the complexities of the war they had been sent to fight. They also demonstrate that music was important for every group of Vietnam veterans-black and white, Latino and Native American, men and women, officers and "grunts" - whose personal reflections drive the book's narrative.

©2015 University of Massachusetts Press (P)2017 Tantor Americas History & Criticism Military Music United States Vietnam War Wars & Conflicts War

Critic reviews

"Doug Bradley and Craig Werner's account of music's connection to the Vietnam War is intimate and deeply informative, with a scope that encompasses both the war itself and the way that music has helped raise awareness of veterans' issues long after its end...Nuanced and frequently moving." ( Rolling Stone)
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Loved the book and the only negative comment is that I didn’t like the blame being placed on Republicans for Vietnam war. I’m pretty sure JFK was a Democrat and he played a big part to start the Vietnam war

I was not in Vietnam but in 1969-70 loved the music

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This is a truly outstanding piece of literature, that centers on the music that was of importance to soldiers in Vietnam, but is much more about the men and women themselves, the additional individuals that somehow found them selves in Vietnam, during those most difficult years, and how they survived for some, but not all, and the major importance that music was to them, and their psyches and their futures at that time and since. A really important read!

Outstanding

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A very interesting review of the Vietnam War--how it unfolded and how attitudes toward it differed. But more than that, this book gives praise to the American music that was woven through all of it. Not terribly political, but reverent in nature.

Illustrates how music unites, fuels, and heals us.

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I really have no clue how many layers my onion holds. GD book made me weep; made me wanna pray for forgiveness; made me mad as hell; made me realize how many different flavors of shit we ate.

Over the years I’ve come to believe that every American - of the age of reason alive then - are Vietnam veterans.

Like our own Civil War (“war between the states” my ass) our decent into the social chaos of the Vietnam Era has scarred our collective identity that the essence of being an American just doesn’t mean Jack Shit anymore.

A friend’s mother once said to him “What you are doing is shouting so loud I can’t hear what you are saying”.

This is one of the books that shouts so loud that we can’t continue to do what we have been doing.

I was at the party. People died so that I could go home. I was asleep then and have since spent time educating myself so that “I won’t get fooled again”.

Guess what? “They” were lying then and “they” are lying today. Eat with your back to the wall.

Good book, BTW. Candid views are contained within.

Running on Empty

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The songs and their truthful memories came flooding back; the center of an era lived during college years, the heart of it all. Time, and strokes, have helped dull the loss but gave even more brilliant light to the sounds and memories. Thank you, Mr's Bradley and Werner for putting a capital letter to meaning Old School and Pride.

No music but incredible memories this brings

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