Today's Wednesday! That means, it's time for your weekly after school special! This week, I chose an amateur video of a Gen Xer singing Where Have All the Flowers by Pete Seeger. She is the daughter of a Vietnam Veteran, and this seems most fitting for Veteran's Day.

The singer writes on her YouTube site:

"Okay, so as long as this war's on, I'll sing these songs... My dad got home from Nam, played the guitar and sang this song and as much as I love Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Joan Baez, well, dad's version rocked. It's hard for me to sing this without getting choked up. Yeah, WHEN will they ever learn? Right? Hmmm. Thanks, Mr. Seeger..."




I have older siblings, and my sisters in particular, loved this song. I remember hearing them sing it many times throughout my childhood. Joan Baez's recording of it was one of my father's favorites, and when I close my eyes and try hard, I can still hear it playing on his record player down the hall from my bedroom in Bartlesville.

The song is actually about World War II soldiers, but became very popular during the era of the Vietnam War. Every time I hear it, I think of a story my family always told me about my cousin Raymond Kujawa. When he came home from Vietnam we all went to K-Mart. I must have been two or three-years-old.

"Raymond wouldn't let you out of his site," my dad said. "He was so attentive to you, as if he was afraid something might happen to you." I loved to hear this story as a little girl, and I carried Raymond's love in my heart. I wrote about this in greater detail when I worked for the military.

My father told me he asked Raymond one time what he learned in Vietnam. Raymond told him, he learned how to stay awake in a tree.

Many Gen Xers are the children of Vietnam Veterans. All these wars hold their place in our memories and fears.