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I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh
By rocky | August 4, 2007
Many people would know Khe Sahn from the classic Australian song of the same name by Cold Chisel or for references in Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA. Khe Sahn was the site of a very bloody battle fought in the Vietnam War. In 1968, Khe Sahn was one of the most remote outposts of the war and ended in one of the biggest sieges of the war between the American Forces and the People’s Army of Vietnam. Today Khe Sanh’s horrid history has been mostly overgrown with wilderness except areas including the old airstrips which were poisoned during the war. The old combat base now houses a small museum of relics from the war and the area is extensively farmed for with coffee and banana plantations. There are several tourist operators from Dong Ha which offer tours to Khe Sahn and the DMZ and give you a good insight into this terrible time in Vietnam’s history. Just as a post note the term sappers refers to the people who extracted sap out of rubber trees.
Map showing Khe Sahn, Vietnam
Categories: Asia
5 Comments Add your own
1. touchy | May 4th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Why is it that Australians love the song “Khe Sahn” when there was no major Australian involvement in that battle!!!!!??? Talk about mass hysteria. I hate that song, and the fact that so many “pub goers” love it shows what a pack of fucking retards they are - unfortunately that is most of Australia’s post baby boomers (before the gen Xers). Cold Chisel suck big time, and so does everyone out there likes the shit they sing.
2. Anonymous | July 5th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
The term sapper does not refer to those who sap trees. It refers to the french term sappe, or to dig ( mine), as was done extensively in wars prior to ww 1
3. kaz | July 14th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Touchy - First of all, Cold Chisel do not suck. Secondly, just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean its crap and anyone who does like it is a dickhead.
Sappers also refers to military engineers (originally a french term) - road builders, demolition experts, etc etc,
4. Rocky | July 14th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Thanks for your comments on this story we have had some good ones…our research wasn’t too good, and the name sappers does actually come from mine diggers not from Rubber plantations as I mentioned. Seems that I wasn’t paying attention too much on the bus trip out there. A few to many of those 333 the night before…sorry
As for not liking Cold Chisel…well I think its just Un-Australia. Long live the mighty Chisel!
5. Walter | July 16th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Cold Chisel do not suck but Don Walker’s brains were firmly in his arse when he wrote Khe Sanh. He ended up with something that’s become a living, breathing insult to Australian veterans and he’s been trying to live it down ever since,
How totally bloody ironic that the fist-pumping oi-oi-oi Aussies who love this song are too dumb to even realise what a pile of unAustralian garbage the lyrics actually are.
Mind you, if Rocky reckons the sappers were out there collecting latex he’s not going to have a problem with an Aussie chopper pilot surviving the siege of Khe Sanh in 1968 before disembarking in Sydney in 1973.
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