Artist Jim Walktendonk

Release Red White and Blind

Year 1989

Label Self-released # None

Format Cassette · Album

Country USA

Language English

Songs here 5 in the archive

1989 · Album · Self-released # None · USA

Jim Walktendonk (aka James) comes from Appleton, Wisconsin, USA, and is currentl based in Gillingham, Wisconsin, USA. He served in Vietnam, 1970-71, with 212th and 595th Sentry Dog Companies, 89th Military Police Battalion. He took up folk singing back in the US. From 2002 he focused on painting, due to the negative effects of Agent Orange making it difficult to play guitar.¹² He released several albums of Vietnam War songs, as well as the book "Song for America", featuring a collection of anti-war / protest songs.³ He is a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW), on ongoing, non-profit anti-war group, taking particular interest in Agent Orange, Veterans Rights, and Pesticide Reform.⁴⁵ His artwork featured in an exhibition at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, called "A Vision from Another Sky: The Paintings of Vietnam Veteran Jim Walktendonk".³ This 1989 cassette album featured two songs related to the memorial wall in D.C. The song "Cold Knuckle Sandwich" , a slang term for a punch in the mouth, focused on a veteran visiting the memorial, recalling that he was a young man in 1968. It is particularly interesting to note the reference to contemporary conflicts, taking an anti-war perspective: "Kuwait, Beruit, and El Savador...what the hell has it all been for?"

The next song, "Just the Dream of Them All Alive" , came in at nearly 7-minutes long, told the story of a dream, in which the songwriter was at the wall, and the soldier's written there stepped out and started dancing to the music. The music provided comfort to both the living and the dead. The songwriter told the dead soldiers that "I won't let the world forget".

The songs