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On The Air From Kansas City: Veterans' Radio

By VVAW

VVRN
Kansas City, MO

If it's Friday afternoon in Kansas City, and if you tune your radio to the area's "Full Spectrum" community station just as the oncoming program's theme song is fading, this is what you'll hear:

"That's Martha and the Vandellas reminding us there's "Nowhere to Run and Nowhere to Hide!" It's 1530 hours, and this is the VIETNAM VETERANS RADIO NETWORK, transmitting from Firebase KKFI, 90.1 FM, Kansas city, Missouri. I'm your host, former Airman First Class George Biswell, exploring the Vietnam War through Rock and Roll."

"During the first three months of 1969 the U.S. 9th Marine Regiment conducted a large-scale Search and Destroy Operation in South Vietnam's northernmost province of Quang Tri. (music starts) The Operation was code-named Dewey Canyon....
the SONG—RUN THROUGH THE JUNGLE by CCR

"In the summer of 1971, as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War were concluding their limited incursions into CongressNAM called Operation Dewey Canyon III, an installment of the "Wizard of ID" cartoon went something like this:

The King walks into one of the Castle's conference rooms and asks an Advisor, "What's that noise?"

"It's a group of Peace Demonstrators marching on the Castle," the Advisor responds.

The King raises his hand, in very dramatic fashion, and demands, "Call out the Army."

The Advisory, leaning out a window hole to cheek out the rumblings below, advises, "I don't think that would help."

"Why not?" shouts the King.

The advisor turns to the King, points over his shoulder to the window and says, "The group demonstrating IS the Army."
SONG—KICK OUT THE JAMS by the MC5.

"On February 22, 1974, the National Academy of Sciences reports that the ecological damage from the use of Agent Orage and other herbicides in South Vietnam may last more than a century."
SONG—NOTHING TO HIDE by Spirit.

Co-produced by VVAW members George Biswell, a former Air Force DJ, and John Upton, a former Navy Corpsman, VVRN began transmitting in July of 1989 and will soon be scribes the program as "A thought-provoking and educational 'Vietnam Experience,' an idea that grew out of our shared feeling that something had to be done about the Vietnam War revisionism going on around us."

In addition to its on-the-air programming, VVRN also conducts a community service program called Operation Christmas Toys. "The Operation's objective," according to VVAW member and Project Director Wayne Pycior, a former Army Artillery Surveyor, "is to secure and distribute Christmas presents to children and grandchildren of Missouri's incarcerated veterans. The Operation is being conducted in cooperation with elements of the 24th Marines, 4th Marine Division (reserves) and the Catholic Church's Social Concerns Office." Public service announcements aired by VVRN for Operation Christmas Toys end with this note: "No War Toys or Dan Quayle Dolls, Please."

For information on how to obtain the VVRN for broadcast on local community radio station, please call George Biswell at (816) 483-0874, or write to VVRN, c/o Firebase KKFI, 1627 Main, Suite 300, Kansas City, MO 64108.