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Hello, my name is Rod Galloway Jr. I am the singer and songwriter for my musical documentary, "War & The American Soldier". I have been working on this project for about ten years. I live in Alpine California 91901, and I am a real estate agent and the owner of an insurance agency. I was born in Lexington Kentucky November 15,1958.
Throughout my life I have always been connected to music in a big way. I remember as a small child, my dad playing classical guitar in our living room. I can still picture him practicing night after night making music. It was fun to hear his music. He had a nice sound. I still have his very first nylon string guitar. I took piano lessons as a child and later in life played the violin and guitar. Like most men or young boys we all want to be rock stars or famous musicians of some kind. It is a dream that is for the most part just a dream and unrealized. But it sure is fun rockin out to AC/DC, Zepplin or Skinner. I still listen to Led Zepplin's Live "The Song Remains The Same", every Friday or Saturday night cranked up through my 200 watt Yamaha P.A Power Amp. My neighbors love me !!! Lots of fun, and very cool.
I started writing music when my son was born in 1991. Kids change you. You do things different and live your life, for the most part on a different level. The first song I wrote was titled "Campfire". At the time I was living alone with my 2 year old son in a remote area of San Diego County in a place called Campo. I built a house and we lived their for about 5 years. My songs are for the most part, ballads. During the early 90's I started writing songs about war and the soldiers who fought them. It has been a lot of fun and extremely rewarding and very soothing to my soul.
I'm not sure how it all came to be, but when I was young I was always interested in the news. I think it was because my dad worked in the defense industry and he always had the news on the T.V. It was like a big pow wow. We would watch CBS or ABC, stuff like that. It seemed that the highlite of the news, day in and day out was the Vietnam war. Two other issues have followed me around since I was a child. The first was when President Kennedy was assasinated. Our family was at Santa's Village in Los Angeles. A spokes person came on the loud speaker announcing the Presidents death. I had just gone down this huge steel slide and was stopped by a large pile of snow. I remember my mom picking me up and telling me we were going home. I could tell there was a saddness and uncertainty in the air. The second issue was when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I remember my Dad coming home from work and my Mom mentioned to him that Martin Luther King had been killed. My dad didn't say much, but I again, felt that mood of saddness and uncertainty. When Bobby Kennedy was killed, for some reason I didn't remember anything my mom or dad said. When that happened I saw it on the news, along with the whole family. I received a degree in political science, from the University of California at San Diego in 1987. For the five or so years I was there I studied as much as I possibly could, you guest it, the Vietnam War. When I graduated, I felt and probably was as close to an expert on the Vietnam war as anyone could be. When ever I had an opportunity to talk about Vietnam and the war, I did. While studying at UCSD I viewed countless photos and video of war in Vietnam. The one video I viewed that has followed me around for a long time was the footage of General Long executing Lam Lim, a Viet Cong Captain on a street corner in Saigon. Some years back I was reading the paper and found General Long's obituary. I couldn't beleive he died. After that I wrote the song "Saigon Corner".
My most recent event that has stuck with me and will be remembered for the rest of my life was the killing of Sgt. Joseph W Perry, in Iraq. He was killed by a sniper while manning a 50 caliber machine gun in a Humvee, in southern Bagdad. Joe's mother and step father live across the street from me. Although Joe and I weren't sincere friends or anything like that. My son and I always tried to get a look at him when he was home. It was fun. I don't know why, but it was kind of like a spy game of some kind. Here was an honest to god soldier who was as "serious as a heart attack" when it came to Iraq. He understood the struggle the Iraqi people were up against. He truly wanted to make a difference in that country. He wanted to help the Iraqi people at any cost. Joe, in my opinion was on a mission, to help those people who couldn't fight or help themselves. Thats what I have learned our soldiers are all about. Joe was a model soldier. One time I stopped over to meet Joe and give him a gift certificate to Outback Steak House. Joe was in town, just not at his mom's at the time. So, I left the gift certificate with his mother Kirsten, and then I was on my way. About a few weeks later Joe came over to my house. The doorbell rang, I opened the door and there stood Joe. He was really tall and very handsome. I mean I couldn't believe how tall he was. He was skinny to, but very healthy. You could tell. He had a few tatoos on his forearms that were very artistic and actually fit his personality very well. I started to laugh a little, because my son and I always wanted to know what he was like. It was like I was meeting Bob Dylan or something. There was a celebrity connection there for some reason. Its kind of embarrasing to say that, but my son and I were really excited and very pleased that he came by. Joe thanked us for the outback gift certificate, we talked about guns and war for about 20 minutes and then he went back to his mom's house. On a few other occasions Joe and his friends would hang out in his mom's garage all night long and listen to music real loud. It was fun to hear. I was never worried or afraid. Because it was Joe and he was enjoying his life, it was all okay. I think one or two times I awoke from a deep sleep hearing this loud bass sound. I thought it was some kid in a car hanging out and listenig to music. I got up and looked out the front window of my house. It was really foggy. I could hardly see Kirstens house the fog was so thick. No worries though, it was Joe hanging around, listening to music and having a good time with his friends, in the garage. I never questioned weather or not it was a strange situation. Some nights the music was loud, 2:00 in the morning. Never once did I think about calling the cops, like some neighbors might consider. As a matter a fact I'd say to myself, "Joe, let her rip, all night long, if you have to". When Joe was killed, another strange occurance was going on through my mind. I couldn't keep my eyes off of Kirstens house. Every day and night I was looking. I mean sometimes midnight, 3:00AM in the morning. It was like I was waiting for Vern (Joe's stepfather), or Kirsten to walk out of the house and maybe fall down or have car trouble or need some kind of assistance so that I could go over to them and help them out. I felt like some kind of night watchman, or something. I didn't want anything else to go wrong. I wanted to do something, but there was really nothing I could do. This bothered me to an extreme. A few days had past maybe a week and finally I went over to see Vern. I knocked on the door and he anserwed. There really wasn't much to say. But, Vern knew I really cared and was with him all the way. It's a side of War that nobody really ever see's. While this was all going on, one day I was writing and performing music in my living room. It was a really pretty day and I had all the blinds open in my living room. I started strumming a moderatly fast G chord. I had my amp and P.A up pretty loud. I belted out "It rained black from the sky that night, the night, the night we got the call". Thats when I wrote "KIA" in about 20 minutes. The problem I have and still have with "KIA", is most times I don't make it through the whole song with-out breaking up. I have played that song maybe 500 times, and still I rarely make it all the way through. One day I went over to see Vern. I asked Vern and Kirsten to come over and listen to some of my music. They came over and sat on the couch. I went through my song list and then came to "KIA". I sang it beautifully and made it all the way through with-out breaking up. It really felt good to have at last finished the song all the way through.
All the songs here and the ones I have not listed on "myspace" have a special and very personal connection. I am very proud of them. For the most part I'm sure there are other influences that have contributed to my songwriting. But the ones mentioned above seem to stick out the most. These songs were recorded in my living room on my computer using Cakewalk's, Sonar 5.
Cheers
Rod
