I dedicate this album to all of my fellow Armed Forces Radio broadcasters who sat behind microphones in Vietnam and around the world — and especially to my fellow Army 71R Broadcast Specialists who knew what it meant to put on the headphones, turn on that microphone, watch the red ON AIR light come on, and somehow make our voices sound calm no matter what was happening outside the studio.

We played the records. We read the news. We took the requests. We talked into that microphone, never really knowing exactly who was listening on the other end.

And to those of you who listened to my broadcasts from Da Nang and Monkey Mountain all those years ago, this album is for you too. Maybe you were sitting in a bunker. Maybe you were pulling guard duty, working a night shift, lying on a cot trying to sleep, riding down a dusty road, or just sitting somewhere thinking about home.

I’ll probably never know most of your names. I’ll never know which songs you heard or whether something I said on the air made any difference. But I hope it did.

I hope somewhere along the way I played a record that made you smile. I hope a song brought back the face of somebody you loved. I hope for three or four minutes you could close your eyes and see your hometown, your family, your girl, your wife, your kids, or that familiar front porch waiting for you back in the States.

Most of all, I hope that for a little while the music gave you some peace, some relaxation, and a reminder that there was still a world waiting for you beyond Vietnam.

Back then, I thought I was just a young Army broadcaster doing my job.

More than fifty years later, I understand it differently. We weren’t just spinning records. Sometimes we were spinning a little piece of home.

To my fellow broadcasters and to every soldier who ever heard my voice coming through a radio in Vietnam — thank you for listening. It was an honor to be there with you.

— Specialist Rick

MOS 71R, Broadcast Specialist

Armed Forces Radio Vietnam

https://bluewaverevivalband.com/album/4166237/spinning-a-little-piece-of-home