I went through basic training half a decade ago, and I heard our DS call that cadence once, towards the very end of basic training, when there wasn't any other platoon within earshot. It was new to us, and normally people would eagerly take to new cadences since it wasn't the same old ones, but with this one I vividly remember a good half of the platoon either half-heartedly mumbling the lyrics or outright not repeating it back at all after the first few lines were called and they processed what it was saying. I remember some of the guys after going, "damn this is actually pretty fucked up" once we got to our destination and had time to chat. If I were to guess, I'd bet that this reaction from the trainees was because by the time I joined up, deployments were winding down and recruiters were using this fact, along with emphasizing the education/medical/housing benefits and job training the military provides to recruit people; these zoomers weren't as gung-ho about 'taking revenge' as the millenials and Gen X guys were in the wake of 9/11.
But yeh, apparently they started phasing out some of the more, uh, offensive cadences around the start of the 2010s.
Napalm Sticks to Kids was one of the major ones that was a big no no to call, and I can count on one hand the times I heard it called at my regular duty station. Nearly every time ended up with the caller getting smoked by an SNCO within earshot that didn't take too kindly to it.
Presumably the ban was to blunt the desensitization that these cadences produce in an effort to tailor a force geared for a "hearts and minds" occupation, but it's a very odd dissonance when you're also being trained to drop ordnance on people and dismiss civilian deaths as collateral damage. If I'm correct about the reason, then I wouldn't be surprised if these cadences came back in vogue as the military goes back to Cold War footing and trains for a near-peer/peer conflict that will be an order of magnitude more vicious that the 'low intensity' conflicts it's fought for the last twenty-odd years.
Anyways, being an imperialist running dog is terrible, so don't join the .mil, kids.
But yeah, apparently they started phasing out some of the more, uh, offensive cadences around the start of the 2010s.
The first line that was censored was "DOW Chemical don't give a shit". Have to be careful to not offend our corporate citizens.
Meh, in all my time in I never heard that cadence often. It was mostly just an incredibly edgy cadence that someone would try to sing for the shock factor before they were immediately shut down by some NCO.
Heard this exactly once while I was in the schoolhouse. Much more common was the one about doing a series of mass shootings.
…isn’t this satirical? or did that go over their heads? I’ve only ever heard this sung by lefty folk singers (apparently with the more offensive verses stripped out) and just always assumed it was a satirical attack on the US in Vietnam. WTF.
