Some of the songs from Viet Nam were written and collected by Dick Jonas, an F-4 pilot in Thailand in the mid 60's. Last I knew he had a web site called Erosonic.com where he sells CDs of the songs he sang, wrote, or adapted from older WWI, WWII, Korea & later conflicts. Thus Wabash Cannonball, tune at least, became the sad story of a young pilot flying neer Teeterboro Tower, in NJ, which became Itazuki Tower during Korea, and Ubon Tower during Viet Nam. All cite the plite of an inexperienced airman running out of fuel, airspeed, ideas, and useful help from the ground; at the same time. The versions I know are fairly tame, as military songs go. A group of Viet Nam vets, including Dick Jonas, released a CD called In Country, which includes many of the songs in the Digital Tradition database. Most of these songs have been sanitized, or selected for less ribald verses, but you can find other songs on the SUNYBufalo web site courtesy of Lydia Fish, a young doctoral candidate who spent some time singing to the troops, and collected many songs from there. A search on her name might yield results

Since the Navy spent long periods of time at sea, in what was then almost a one-sex service; their songs tended to deal with the problems of getting a bit, when ashore with 6,000 other Navy buddies, in a small port. By the same token, Oriental port towns like Sasebo, Japan, Olongapo, PI, and others figured prominently in takes of woe or sexual triumph, in pre-Tailhook days. The last I knew, Kiss Me Goodnight Sergeant Major was still available on Amazon.com or similar sites, and this has lots of British and Commonwealth songs of WWII. Aditionally a search for "Swordfish", "Harrier", or similar might yield some Fleet Air Arm songs on the net.

These are not necessarily nice songs, but they were what we sang late at night, in the beer tents, to keep ourselves entertained or from going crazy - If you can sign about it or laugh about it, you msy still be able to cope with it. Dave