I found yesterday's lecture to be one of the most interesting lectures of the year. Not only was the Vietnam War memorial interesting to learn about, I found the most interesting part of lecture was learning about the true meaning of Bruce Springstein's classic hit, "Born in the USA". This song has been one of my favorite songs since I first heard it. I have listented to it hundreds of times and never once really paid attention to what the lyrics were actually saying. I always thought it was a patriotic song about how great it is to be American and how proud he was to be born in America.
Finding out the song was not intented to be a patriotic ballad caught me really off guard. The song was actually written describing the hardships faced by Vietnam veterans upon returning home from the war. This is a stark contrast to the message I thought the song portrayed. "Come back home to the refineryHiring man said son if it was up to meWent down to see my v.a. manHe said son, dont you understand". This quote describes how hard it was for veterans to find jobs upon arriving home.
After lecture yesterday, I looked up the lyrics to the song and just read them over a few times. It is very easy to see after reading the lyrics that the song is not a patriotic song in the least. It has been one of my favorite songs for years and I never realized the true meaning. That's what made lecture so interesting for me yesterday. I was ignorant to the real meaning unitl yesterday's lecture.
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I agree. I did not have any idea what that song was about and I have heard it a million times. I also really enjoyed this lecture. I was fascinated by the "practice of leaving stuff" at the memorial. I thought it was really interesting how the design of the memorial came to be and the controversy around it, as well as the idea that the vietnam memorial attracts more people than disneyworld.
ReplyDeleteYa I also found her discussion on the Vietnam memorial to be incredibly interesting. The fact that more people have been to the memorial than Disney World is simply unbelievable to me. I also found it interesting the wide variety of belongings people left at the memorial.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this may be repeating what you both already said, but "Born in the USA" was a song that I can remember listening to in my Dad's car when I was in elementary school. I always thought of it as an uplifting song and something to make you proud of being an American. Hearing Professor Hass's take on it as well as the true meaning behind it was really something that opened my eyes and made the lecture one of the most interesting of the year for me.
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