Can You Help a Vietnam Vet 40 Years Later?

Original Article by Nick Oliva at Only Moments: http://onlymoments.wordpress.com/
Article URL: http://onlymoments.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/can-you-help-a-vietnam-vet-40-years-later/

Hi all,

This message is written by one of my fellow bloggers on the 1960s, Nick Oliva at Only Moments. Take a read and I'm sure it will appeal to your sense of the 60s and to your sense of justice. Cheers.

The following is a comment I received on my blog of the Atlantic City Pop Festival’s 40th Anniversary. Please read it and pass it on to whomever you can, and maybe, just maybe ‘Sev’ will get to look at the pictures that he had taken 40 years ago.

It is occurrences like this that make writing this blog all worthwhile. I hope by some small chance we could make this Vietnam Veteran’s wish come true. (Note: I did clean up the letter’s punctuation and language a little bit to make it clearer).

Sev writes: I remember this festival well … I went AWOL from Ft Dix for the three days and I didn’t care because I was getting ready to be shipped to Vietnam. I arrived while Chicago (Transit Authority) was playing and they were so good that I thought they were playing a record to warm people up but it was them live!!

I pitched myself a tent and went wandering around. During my stay, I kept walking backstage and no one stopped me (it was a different world back then). My highlights were meeting Janis, Grace Slick, Tracy Nelson, & Frank Zappa.

When I met Janis I handed her a button that said “Kiss me I’m Italian” she said, “You’re Italian? I Like Italians.” Her guitarist behind her laughed and said “ahhhh you like everybody.” She laughed and kissed me on the head, under my eye, on my cheek and near my mouth. It is something I will never forget as long as I live!!

Frank Zappa was so nice, he looked at me and then my army haircut and said, “Hey you look like me when I was a kid.” I took so many pictures but unfortunately I took them with me to Nam and the day I got there someone broke into my locker and ripped me off … I swear I am telling the truth.

If someone is reading this and knows of someone that has them or does remember having them PLEASE post them and send them to me. I would really like to have them back … They were of Me & Janis, Me & Grace, Me & Frank, & a few of other stars including Grace & Janis together. Thanks for reading.

Pasquale Severino

Trenton, New Jersey

IF ANYONE OUT THERE CAN HELP... SEND ‘SEV’ HIS PICTURES TO THE FOLLOWING EMAIL ADDRESS: MysteryLyricfest@aol.com