Missing in Action
2016 · Not On Label AM0012 · Australia
- Artist
- Graham Rodger
- Title
- Missing in Action
- Release
- They Answered the Call
- Year
- 2016
- Label
- Not On Label # AM0012
- Format
- CD · Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- Australia
- Songwriter
- Graham Rodger
- Genre
- Country · Traditional Country
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation — Australian & New Zealand Songs
Country musician from Queensland, Australia. Retiring as an ambulance driver in the 1990s, he turned to music, releasing dozens of country albums, with "Australia and Australians as the major themes for his ballads", and a focus on the "traditions cemented into our culture by the late Slim Dusty".1 The album "They Answered the Call" had a military / war theme, focused on Australia's role in World War One, World War Two, the Vietnam War, Afghanistan, amongst other conflicts. Specific Vietnam-related songs including a version of "The Battle of Long Tan" and "The Battle of Coral", discussed above, as well as "Missing in Action", and "Fifty Thousand Australian Sons". Several songs were about veterans, which did not reference a specific war. The song "Missing in Action" provided a post-war look at the impact of the war on a father whose son never returned from the Vietnam War, presumably killed in action (K.I.A.), or as the government / military informed him back then: "missing in action was all they would say... his number and name". The father was watching a parade, and when "the Vietnam veterans march by", the memories flooded back: "our young men where called to the 'Nam", with the…
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Notes
Self-released. A father whose son did not return from Vietnam watches the veterans march.
About the artist
Graham Rodger - country singer-songwriter from Queensland; a former ambulance officer who turned to music in the 1990s and has released dozens of albums in the Slim Dusty tradition.
Themes
Vet · Home Front Perspective · Digger · Anzac Day · Combat