"Napalm Sticks to Kids" is a rhythmic and rhyming performance that has seen life as both a published song and an informal military cadence with roots in the Vietnam War during which napalm—an incendiary gel—saw extensive use.

Song

"Napalm Sticks to Kids"
Song by Covered Wagon Musicians
from the album We Say No to Your War!
Released1972 (1972)
Length4:18
LabelParedon Records

"Napalm Sticks to Kids" is a 1972 song about the Vietnam War by Covered Wagon Musicians,[1] a musical ensemble of active-duty military personnel stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base. "Napalm" is the twelfth song (sixth on the B-side) from Covered Wagon Musicians' album We Say No to Your War!; released by Paredon Records, the song is 4:18 long.[2]  Music historian Justin Brummer, editor of the Vietnam War Song Project wrote in History Today that the song provided "an unflinching picture of the war" in which 388,000 long tons (394,000 t) of Napalm B were dropped on Indochina between 1963 and 1973.[1]

According to the band, United States Army and Air Force personnel assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division originally wrote the words to "Napalm Sticks to Kids" while stationed in South Vietnam. Each person wrote a verse about actions in which they participated, "express[ing] their collective bitterness toward the military that had turned them into murderers." When one of those Vietnam veterans—Sergeant Mike Elliot—was assigned to Mountain Home AFB, he had the lyrics published in the first issue of the Helping Hand newsletter, from where it spread throughout the military world.[3]

Cadence

Carol Burke, a professor at the United States Naval Academy (USNA) wrote about "Napalm Sticks to Kids" in the context of military cadences. Since the mid-19th century, cadences have been for improving morale, unit cohesion, and the weight of military labor. Burke observed that "offensiveness drives cadences", noting examples of insubordination, sexual objectification of women, and the celebration of collateral damage; General William Westmoreland explained these topics: "Gallows humor is, after all, merely a defense mechanism for men engaged in perilous and distasteful duties."[4]

"The Terror of War" by Nick Ut

The "Napalm Sticks to Kids" cadence has been taught at training to all branches of the United States Armed Forces. Its verses delight in the application of superior US technology that rarely if ever actually hits the enemy; "the [singer] fiendishly narrates in first person one brutal scene after another: barbecued babies, burned orphans, and decapitated peasants in an almost cartoonlike litany."[4] The phrase was used as a slogan by anti-war protesters in the US, often accompanied by Nick Ut's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, "The Terror of War" (June 8, 1972).[5] Burke interpreted the military call-and-response work song as a rebuke thereof, an effort to self-transform the servicemember from the demonized "baby-killer" to the haunted and broken veteran.[4]

Flyin' low and feelin' mean,
Find a family by the stream.
Pick off a pair and hear 'em scream,
Cause napalm sticks to kids.

Family of gooks are sittin' in a ditch,
Little baby suckin' on his mama's tit.
Chemical burns don't give a shit,
Cause napalm sticks to kids.

An Officer and a Gentleman,
quoted from an active-duty DI[6]

"Napalm Sticks to Kids" was employed at the USNA from the early 1970s until the late 1980s when efforts were made to prohibit its singing.[4] During pre-production of the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman, the screenplay was sent to the US Navy for approval in the hopes that the military would support production of the film. The Navy refused, citing as inaccurate: the film's vulgarity, offensive language, and amorality—including saying that "Napalm Sticks to Kids" was no longer used by the early 1980s. Writer and producer Douglas Day Stewart knew otherwise; not only was he a former Naval officer, but during his research, an active Naval-officer trainer dictated "Napalm Sticks to Kids" to Stewart. In response to the Navy's claims, Stewart traveled to Naval Air Station Pensacola and interviewed a group of officer candidates who all confirmed that the cadence was still in widespread use. An Officer and a Gentleman did not modify the script to suit the Navy, and so without their support, the film features aviation candidates chanting the running song.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 Brummer, Justin (25 September 2018). "The Vietnam War: A History in Song". History Today. ISSN 0018-2753. Archived from the original on 21 February 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2019. The 'First Television War' was also documented in over 5,000 songs. From protest to patriotism, popular music reveals the complexity of America's two-decade long [sic] experience struggling against communism in Vietnam.
  2. ↑ "We Say No to Your War! | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings". Smithsonian Folkways. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on 23 October 2018. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  3. ↑ The Covered Wagon Musicians (1972), Dane, Barbara (ed.), We Say No to Your War!: Songs Written and Sung by The Covered Wagon Musicians Active-Duty Air Force People, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, Collective Graphics Workshop, pp. 15–16, retrieved 14 July 2021
  4. 1 2 3 4 Burke, Carol (October–December 1989). "Marching to Vietnam". Journal of American Folklore. American Folklore Society. 102 (406): 424–441. doi:10.2307/541782. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 00218715. OCLC 67084841. Marching chants induce recruits to sever ties with a civilian past and to embrace, however reluctantly, a martial future. In wartime, these recruits adopt the persona of frontline soldiers, though they may never see combat; in peacetime, they chant of their predecessors. While some Vietnam cadence calls reflect conventional attitudes about training and combat, others draw the grotesque picture of the enemy as helpless civilian child. [sic]
  5. ↑ Guillaume, Marine (10 December 2016). "Napalm in US Bombing Doctrine and Practice, 1942–1975". Mass Violence & Résistance. ISSN 1961-9898.
  6. 1 2 Robb, David L. (2004). "An Officer, But Not a Gentleman". Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. pp. 197–204. ISBN 1-59102-182-0.

Further reading

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