Bil
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Original record of Bill's four songs released in 1969.
Cover art painted by PIO artist Ron Doss from a polaroid picture I took of Bill on a greenline bunker behind the information office.
Bill Ellis came from a hotbed of antiwar sentiment, Hayward, California, just south of Berkeley. That area was also on the musical cutting edge in the 60's. The draft radically changed Bill's direction and in late 1968 he was a grunt with A Company, First battalion, Fifth Cavalry with the First Cavalry Division's Third Brigade based at Quan Loi, north of Saigon, near Cambodia.
His talent was recognized and he was assigned to Special Services, but he actually worked with us at the information office in Phuoc Vinh. We had sound technicians and writers that had also been musicians in "the world". It was an interesting place to be. I was the other Californian on the Information Office staff, we endured harassment for being from California. I had a California Flag above my area, sent to me by Governor Reagan. Bill would do concerts all over the Cav area, I went along whenever I could.
Bill had real insights into the emotions and the stark reality of being a grunt. It comes out in the songs "Grunt" and the powerful "Firefight".
Bill's page 2
