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Free Fire Zone

Kerry Livgren
Language: English


Kerry Livgren


[1992]
Parole e musica di Kerry Livgren, membro dei Kansas e poi fondatore degli AD e dei Proto-Kaw.
Nel disco compilativo intitolato “Decade”



Una canzone che mi ha riportato alla mente una delle tante celebri sequenze di “Full Metal Jacket” di Stanley Kubrick, quella in cui durante un trasporto in elicottero un mitragliere continua a sparare senza sosta sui civili vietnamiti nelle risaie sottostanti urlando come un pazzo, “Get some! Get some! Get some, get some! Yeah, YEAH! C'mon, C'mon! Get some!”.



Ecco il dialogo completo tra il “door gunner”, interpretato da Tim Colceri, e il soldato-giornalista Joker, interpretato da Matthew Modine:


Door Gunner: Git some! Git some! Git some, yeah, yeah, yeah! Anyone who runs is a VC. Anyone who stands still is a well-disciplined VC! You should do a story about me sometime!
Joker: Why should we do a story about you?
Door Gunner: 'Cause I'm so fucking good! That ain't no shit neither. I done got me 157 dead Gooks killed and fifty water buffalo too! Them are all certified.
Joker: Any women or children?
Door Gunner: Sometimes!
Joker: How can you shoot women and children?
Door Gunner: Easy! You just don't lead 'em so much! Ha ha! Ain't war hell?





Mitragliere: “Beccati questo! E questo! E questo! Sì, sì, sììì! Chi scappa è un vietcong, e chi non scappa è un vietcong lo stesso… ben addestrato! Dovresti scrivere una storia su di me un giorno o l’altro!”
Joker: “Perché dovrei scrivere un pezzo su di te?”
Mitragliere: “Perché sono così dannatamente in gamba! Non ci sono cazzi! Ho steso 157 musi gialli e 50 bufali pure! Tutto certificato.”
Joker: “Anche donne e bambini?”
Mitragliere: “Qualche volta…”
Joker: “Come fai a sparare a donne e bambini?”
Mitragliere: “Facile! Non devi riempirli molto di piombo! Ah, ah! La guerra non è un inferno?”


Aggiungo che in Vietnam la policy nelle “free-fire zones” era di far fuoco su qualsiasi cosa si muovesse (“turkey shoots”, fare tiro a segno, letteralmente “impallinare i tacchini”), uomini donne e bambini e persino il bestiame… L’obiettivo era infati quello di terrorizzare la popolazione e idurla ad abbandonare i villaggi… La strategia veniva chiamata anche “Indian Country”: come si erano a suo tempo massacrati i pellerossa e i loro bisonti, così in Vietnam si macellavano i “gooks”, i musi gialli, e i loro bufali… Coerenza e continuità nella Storia: “Ain't war hell?”



Dalle dichiarazioni del Capitano Robert B. Johnson, U.S. Army, di fronte ad una commissione d’inchiesta parlamentare (fonte: en.wikipedia):

[Representative] Sieberling: You talked about the purpose of the free-fire zones. You have mentioned the fact that the free-fire zones and the harassment and interdiction fire at villagers were obviously designed to force the villagers to leave and go to resettlement areas. Did you ever hear anyone in a position of rank indicate expressly that was one of the purposes?

Johnson: No, I did not, because a few months after I left, there was a big report in Stars and Stripes, one area very close to us, having got 12,000 people, there was a whole operation planned where all of them at once were forcibly moved to detention camps, not by the bombings but by U.S. Marines and the ARVN troops forcibly removing them to these detention camps. That happened in June, 1968.

Sieberling: Did you ever hear of the expression "turkey shoots"?

Johnson: I have heard the free-fire zone referred to by the pilots and other people as "Indian Country."

Sieberling: But you are not familiar with the expression "turkey shoots"?

Johnson: I am familiar with it, but where I was operating I didn't hear anyone personally use that term. We used the term "Indian Country."

Sieberling: What did "Indian Country" refer to?

Johnson: I guess it means different things to different people. It is like there are savages out there, there are gooks out there. In the same way we slaughtered the Indian's buffalo, we would slaughter the water buffalo in Vietnam.

Sieberling: Was there any indoctrination, official or semi-officially, that incorporated the ideas that these people are gooks or that the only good gook is a dead gook or similar philosophies, or was this just something once you got there you picked it up from the other people who had been there?

Johnson: I just picked it up from other people. Before I went to Vietnam, I remember one adviser who had been there before and had been through some tough straits telling me you can't trust any of these. That was not official policy. I don't think you could find it anywhere that you can't trust the gooks in writing.

Sieberling: Do you have any evidence that this was so widespread that it must have been known to people at all levels of command?

Johnson: I don't have any specific evidence except my 6 months in the infantry division, an American unit, and the disdain and disgust of the Vietnamese was extremely widespread there.

Fear for your life, just when you thought you were safe inside,
Dangerous place, You are expendable they decide,
Another statistic infanticide

Surrounded within, you rest in your innocence
How could you know, you can’t stay alive in the

Free Fire Zone
Free Fire Zone
Now they’re opening fire
(I fear for your life) (no chance to survive)
in the Free Fire Zone

No longer sacred, our children, ending a life that has just begun
Blood on the ground cries for vengeance,
Who will defend you O, little One?

Now the nightmare’s begun, unwanted lives are undone
How can you live with the shame?
Can it be true that your hearts are so cold, souls have been sold,
Life is so cheap, nothing you’d want to keep.

Life is a gift, you were given a page in the Book of Eternity
Waiting outside in the Maelstrom, they took away what you’ll never see

Free Fire Zone
Free Fire Zone
Now they’re opening fire
(I fear for your life) (no chance to survive)
in the Free Fire Zone

Contributed by Bernart Bartleby - 2014/9/15 - 09:47




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