Episode 7: No, I'm Not Good | American Veteran: Unforgettable Stories Podcast | PBS
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- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- As a teenager watching the 9/11 attacks, Clifton Hicks remembers that it was “our Pearl Harbor moment.” He joined the army as an M1 Abrams tank specialist and deployed to Germany, Kuwait, and finally to Iraq. There, his experiences in combat convinced him that what he was doing wasn’t glamorous or honorable. He earned the enmity of many of his colleagues by speaking out against the war. Then he made the risky decision to try and get out of the army as a conscientious objector.
Hicks' story is the seventh episode in a new podcast series, American Veteran: Unforgettable Stories.
In war and in peace, what veterans have done in America’s name is woven into the fabric of the American story. The new PBS series, American Veteran, illuminates their experiences with a stunning range of veterans’ voices, presented in a primetime television series; a collection of digital shorts on RUclips, American Veteran: Keep It Close; and a new 9-part podcast, American Veteran: Unforgettable Stories.
Each episode of the podcast revolves around the direct testimony of a single veteran - from a Coast Guard gunner’s mate who manned a landing craft at Omaha Beach on D-Day, to an Army nurse in Vietnam who struggled to do her part, to a satellite technician who served as a gay man during the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell era. This collection of riveting first-person stories provides a compelling portrait of the veteran experience over multiple generations.
The series is hosted by Phil Klay, a Marine Corps veteran featured in the American Veteran television series and author of the National Book Award-winning collection of short stories, “Redeployment.”
American Veteran: Unforgettable Stories is a production of Insignia Films and PRX for GBH.
For more powerful memories from veterans, visit PBS.org/AmericanVeteran, where you can also watch the American Veteran television series and digital short films. Learn more by using #AmericanVeteranPBS.
Funding for American Veteran: Unforgettable Stories is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with additional funding from The Wexner Family Charitable Fund, Battelle Memorial Institute, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Analog Devices.
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I didn’t know Clifton hicks was a veteran god bless him and I love his banjo playing
So much respect for you Sir Clifton Hicks, God bless you
A great musician too here on youtube give him a listen
The older I get the more emotional I seem to be. This podcast had me water eyed throughout most
Thank you, Mr. Hicks, for telling your story with such humility and honesty, and for your efforts to stop the war. This is an important perspective that many would have been uncomfortable to share. I am going to listen to this again with my son, who turns 18 this year, as the world gears up for another senseless war.
Yeh. A hope he can prove his kinfowk can prove to descend fra Roger's Rangers and J Oglethorpe tae boot. A'M NAE JOKIN!!! sorry if i sound like i ride the blue angles. A'm a jock. NAE NERD!!!
I've been listening to the music of Clifton Hicks for 2 Years or more.
Thank you Mr. Hicks. Thank you for your patriotic zeal, your honest reevaluations, and your music. I've been enjoying your YT channel since the Ballad of Kyle Rittenhouse. -some 49 y/o across the ocean with teenage sons.
Clifton Hicks is no fool and a very knowledgeable banjo musician.
A great story Clifton! It appears to me that in spite of all the hell you took the positive from your experience. Sure, ups and downs and confusion but it all has made your Spirit stand tall which is very apparent in your music, Heartfelt indeed! I live in Amish, Mennonite and Church of the Brethren here in SE Pennsylvania. During the Vietnam war when the draft was happening and friends were drafted and gone and some not returning alive, i too was opposed to war. I wasn’t drafted but decided to volunteer two year to help humanity. CO status was common in my county. Anyway, Thank You for standing up for your beliefs. I’ve always honored those who went into the military and for those who stood in their own light. Much Music and Many Blessings! DaveyJO in Pennsylvania
This a a profound podcast. Thanks you Mr. Hicks. I am glad you survived it. I am glad you are having so much success with the banjo and growing your business.
Thank you so much for this podcast! People in Germany don't what war realy means and they also don't know what it means to be involved in it as a human being. They can talk a lot, but they know nothing.
Clifton Hicks is a very fine musician and because of one of his videos I found the DLA as very good source of Appalachia music and also the Library of Congress. I'm very thankful for this😊
Greetings from Germany and God bless you all!
i was in the army !! and i understand where you come from clifton good music btw
Big respect for anyone who can take an objective review of their own stance and change it. Also props for the courage to stand up and articulate the problems without trying to villainise one sidemor the other.
Oh and for an "anti-war" film i would nominate "Johnny got his gun". Not in the least bit alluring, and honestly not for the faint hearted in my opinion.
On another note this guy plays a meeeeeean banjo, anyone who hasnt looked him up should do so.
If you take a stand to right wrongs in the military your get a OTH under honorable conditions.
I believe you.
Thnxs
why does this sound like this was a video originally and not a podcast is there actually video somewhere?
All wars are bankster's wars.
Give me war for I am blood. And the reverse.
Love his banjo instruction, but I'm having a hard time understanding his position here. He took an oath to be a US soldier, an instrument of policy and not a policy maker. War is a terrible thing, yes. And our involvement in Iraq in retrospect was a waste and was wrong. But that's not an indictment of our military but an indictment of Washington D.C. and our intelligence apparatus which is severely compromised by the military industrial complex. Curious to know if he voted for the very politicians that PBS embraces, the same who dutifully serve the same military industrial complex that keeps leading us into low-grade wars in places we shouldn't be just to keep selling us weapons and ammo to burn.
Also, in the final analysis, the Army took care of him. He wanted to be a CO even though he clearly wasn't against war as a concept and he didn't seem to have a moral objection to the Iraq war, he just didn't like it there. His objections to the war aren't grounded in anything that is lucid. America left Iraq yet the war there continued, people there continued to kill each other.
To each their own but this dude is my idea of a coward.
You are a coward! Show your real name and face!
If you were totally against war why did you join!
There are amazing benefits and if you're not from a family that is doing super well, it's a great option to help yourself get a leg up in life! Broke people can't afford to uphold their morals...
Because life is a war in itself!
Maybe you could listen to the story before making comment- just a thought. It is explained very well and openly.
You didn't listen to the beginning of his story. He gave his reason.
Not too swift, are you?