First hour: Special rebroadcast: Singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier
Second hour: PRX special: We've Never Been the Same: A War Story
If you haven’t heard of singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier, you’ll want to tune in for this special rebroadcast. Gauthier is a country musician who recently said that she wasn't sober until she was 27, and couldn't write until she was 30. Twenty-five years later, she's an unlikely voice for veterans. Gauthier's newest album includes songs co-written with veterans. Those songs explore a range of subjects, including the service of women in uniform, and the pain of loss. It’s a conversation we want to hear again this Memorial Day, as we honor the sacrifices of so many American men and women.
Then in our second hour, a special broadcast from Public Radio Exchange called "We've Never Been the Same: A War Story." All wars are the same, it is said; only the scenery changes. And the repercussions are pretty much the same too. Over the course of five years, Adam Piore gathered the stories of the surviving members of Delta Company, a Vietnam-era paratrooper unit; Jay Allison joined him for the last two years when it turned from a book into a radio story. At Fort Campbell before deployment, Delta was a ragtag bunch, the “leftovers” as one of their fellow soldiers put it, but on the night of March 18th, 1968, they became heroes. Their leader received the Medal of Honor and two others were awarded the nation’s second highest honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, for their valor that night when the company endured a long and devastating battle—not as long or as devastating, however, as the years that followed, after the men of Delta Company came home separately to live alone with the memories. Adam Piore became dedicated to this group of guys and to their common story of trauma, guilt, courage, heartbreak, and reunion.