say it ain't so, Joe : Indybay

'Country' Joe is a soul who is misunderstood

Chip Johnson Friday, October 26, 2001

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While Berkeley residents and a majority of its City Council rail against the United States' war on terrorism, one of its best-known citizens - "Country" Joe McDonald - is busy supporting the U.S. armed services.

Army. Air Force. Navy. Marines.

As his hometown officially opposes the bombing of Afghanistan, the man who wrote and performed perhaps the most memorable song of the Vietnam War era is backing the men and women fighting what he calls "the current crisis."

The "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag," made famous at Woodstock in 1969, has defined McDonald's life ever since, whether he likes it or not. Both he and the song are full of contrasts.

The son of late Berkeley councilwoman and leftist political leader Florence McDonald was a Navy veteran who also participated in anti-war protests during the 1960s.

Despite its reputation as an anthem for the anti-war movement, McDonald wrote the tune as a ballad, a tale of a giddy-nervous soldier on the brink of battle.

"It's not the song of a universal soldier or pacifist, but the story of a soldier going to war and feeling a bit . . . anxious," he said.

And it's one, two, three, What are we fighting for?

McDonald draws a clear line between supporting the "suits" who send Americans to war and the people who actually fight it, one battle at a time.

He's no Ted Nugent, a Michigan-born rock-'n'-roller who belongs to the National Rifle Association, but McDonald doesn't share the views of the elected officials who represent Berkeley's leftist council majority.

This is a town that has a synchronized flashback every time the nation mentions an aggressive military action.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, the city and its hometown university have been in a red-alert, anti-war mode.

City firefighters were ordered to remove U.S. flags from their trucks because their bosses feared reprisals from zealous protesters. Then student officers at the University of California at Berkeley threatened to raise the rent for the student-run Daily Californian newspaper after it refused to run a front-page apology for a cartoon viewed as anti-Muslim.

Then the five-member council majority voted on Oct. 16 to urge U.S. officials to halt the bombing in Afghanistan.

"I don't want to join in the Berkeley bashing because I live in this city, and I like the place," McDonald said.

Still, McDonald said the council's vote amounts to futile symbolism in a nation that solidly backs the use of military force as a response to the terrorist attacks.

"Not one soldier's life will be won or lost on account of what Berkeley's government does," he said. "The city of Berkeley has 120,000 people in it, and their vote won't influence the State Department or the Joint Chiefs of Staff at all.

In the world of Berkeley politics, McDonald counts Mayor Shirley Dean among his biggest supporters, mainly because she was just about the only local politician who appeared genuinely interested in establishing a Memorial Day celebration in Berkeley.

The irony of his misunderstood 1969 ballad is not lost on McDonald.

The refrain of the song is a cavalier look at death from the eyes of a soldier so wound up and scared that the only way to see the job through is to lighten the moment by dismissing the danger.

Ain't no time to wonder why. Whoopee, we're all gonna die.

Still, the song has become a standard in the anti-war movement and for servicemen alike. It has been sung at war demonstrations and at Marine Corps boot camps, he said.

And while others glean humor, comfort or some other positive energy from McDonald's classic, he's not one of them.

"I am past the period of my life when I wished I'd never written that song, " he said.

After the release of the Woodstock film, McDonald was banned from appearances, lost radio air play and was stamped as unpatriotic.

"Hey, I 'm a veteran, and every one of us has the patriotism box checked off," he said.

Nearly 30 years ago, McDonald refused to be photographed with activist Abbie Hoffman until he removed a U.S. flag he wore as a cape.

A decade ago, McDonald balked when People magazine suggested draping the flag around him for a photo shoot.

At a Veteran's for Peace convention in San Francisco four years ago, Phil Butler, a former prisoner of war who lives in Monterey, told McDonald that the song was piped through speakers and into cells at the Hanoi Hilton, a top- secret prison camp where he was held.

"Whenever they played my song, he told me that the whole compound lightened up and sang along," McDonald said.

While performing for a group of Navy nurses bound for the Persian Gulf War a decade ago, he sang a couple of songs honoring the work of combat nurses. When he'd finished, they asked him if he would play "that" song.

"They'd already been assigned, and they knew where they were going," he said.

"We all sang the song together, and when it was done, I went home and they went off to war."

Chip Johnson's column also appears in the Bay Area section on Mondays and once a month on Sundays. He can be reached at (510) 433-5984, by e-mail at chjohnson [at] sfchronicle.com, or by writing The Chronicle at 483 Ninth St., Suite 100, Oakland, CA 94607.

say it ain't so, Joe

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