Talk:Napalm Sticks to Kids

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 11, 2008	Candidate for speedy deletion	Kept
May 14, 2008	Proposed deletion	Kept
May 19, 2008	Proposed deletion	Kept
June 1, 2008	Articles for deletion	Kept

Songs

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Military history: Culture / North America / United States / Cold War B‑class

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Reference ideas for Napalm Sticks to Kids

The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

Knight, Jeff Parker (April 1990). "Literature as Equipment for Killing: Performance as Rhetoric in Military Training Camps". Text and Performance Quarterly. 10 (2): 157–168. doi:10.1080/10462939009365965. ISSN 1046-2937.

January 2007

I am interested in talking with anyone who know this cadence for folklore purposes. If you know this and are willing to talk, please feel free to email me or call me. Serendipitousstl 13:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

March 2007

Gullible.info is comprised of fake trivia [1] and should not be used as a source of valid information. Kylestoneman 17:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

May 2009

Hey, all I know is that this cadence was still pretty damned popular in my Civil Air Patrol squadron in the late 90's. 24.47.154.230 (talk) 11:45, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

controversy & black comedy

On 2 February 2022 at 13:42 UTC, Kjell Knudde (talk · contribs) added the categories music controversies and black comedy music to the article, but there's no reliably-sourced prose to verify them. Before removing them IAW the verifiability policy, does anybody have a source that can support these categorizations? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 14:10, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article mentions a source, claiming that the U.S. military actually went through efforts to ban this song, which proves its controversy. - User:Kjell Knudde, 15:15, 2 February 2022 (UTC).[reply]

Well, primarily, that's original research. Banning something doesn't necessarily equal controversy. Lead paint is widely banned, now, and that article has no mention of controversy. Fake snow made from asbestos is banned, too, yet those articles are lacking on prose or categorization mentioning controversy. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 14:24, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, bans on lead and asbestos have both definitely faced controversy, chiefly from the companies producing them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:642:C481:4640:441F:5E15:8611:2051 (talk) 22:25, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"rarely used?"

"Its verses delight in the application of superior US technology that rarely if ever actually hits the enemy" seems to be plainly apologetics; napalm definitely did hit children on multiple occasions. Remove it. 2601:642:C481:4640:441F:5E15:8611:2051 (talk) 22:26, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(a) Your opinion as to "apologetics" is original research, and does not influence articular content. (b) The quote refers to the enemy, that being the military forces of then-North Vietnam. "Its verses delight in the application of superior US technology that rarely if ever actually hits the enemy [and instead lands on non-combatants]." I've replaced the quote IAW the BRD cycle. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 23:11, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh sure, pointing it out is "original research" but the original act of actually saying it wasn't? just admit you're all bootsucking imperialist dogs — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:642:C481:4640:0:0:0:4722 (talk) 03:31, 19 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Barring new and substantive industry pushback, the Journal of American Folklore is a reliable source; two pseudonymous Wikipedia editors are not. Secondly, I explained the quote. Lastly, please familiarize yourself with Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 11:52, 19 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

uncertainty

I'm not entirely sure what objections Aos Sidhe (talk · contribs) has, nor what exactly they were trying to change. I tried to explain my edits in this summary, but mostly I'm just fixing new problems I saw introduced while trying to intuit their intent. If they or somebody else can articulate here what the actual problems/issues they see, I'd sure rather work with them to resolve that without introducing synthesis and verification concerns. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 19:23, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My intent was to cut the article down to only things focused directly on the song/cadence, condense the overall info, and maintain a more neutral tone.

The opening of the article can be cut down, as "originates from the Vietnam War," "the Vietnam War used napalm," and "napalm is an incendiary gel" are all not critical to a quick description of the topic and are already either self-evident, exist on the page already (and directly afterwards), or is information available (and more relevant) in the article about the actual thing (Vietnam War, napalm).
An explanation of what cadences are or their purpose is extraneous, as that belongs in the article about cadences.
I don't see why Carol Burke's thoughts on how cadences work are clearly related to this cadence. They belong, if anywhere, on the actual cadence article. If this was a cadence that was used explicitly as a key example of her points, then maybe it's relevant, but that needs to be made more clear. It's also unclear why Carol Burke is notable or her thoughts are relevant—one professor having thoughts about a song and how that applies to the population who sings it isn't notable per se. Similarly, the General's responses aren't really relevant.
I don't have strong opinions on including an image of The Terror of War, but I'm not a fan as it's only tangentially related to the actual article.
The bit about the Navy felt too long and structured like a narrative. It also feels not-quite-clinical enough, probably due to the narrative feel, but that's hard to directly point to. I think the relevant bits in that are the following: i. The film An Officer and a Gentleman featured the cadence and sent the script to the Navy for approval. ii. The Navy refused, and parts of their objection was that the cadence no longer was actively used. iii. The writer/producer went and interviewed active officer candidates who confirmed its use. iv. The film featured the cadence. I don't think we need all the extra detail and facts like "he used to be an officer and had heard someone describe the cadence while he was doing research," because neither of those necessarily indicate the active use of the cadence. Even if they did, his disagreement is self-evident in that he immediately went out to disprove/confirm the claim, and the actual status of the cadence is then made explicit by the officer candidate's confirmation.

Aos Sidhe (talk) 21:16, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The opening of the article can be cut down Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Length, there's no need to; the Vietnam War-origins of "Napalm Sticks" are woven throughout the article, and so as a summary of the article, it makes sense to include a smidge of that there, and as for defining napalm, it's essential knowledge to understanding the much of the context. An explanation of what cadences are […] belongs in the article about cadences. A summarized explanation of cadences is needed here to just understand what cadences are. We do already link to military cadence, and this isn't trying to duplicate that article IAW Wikipedia:Summary style; a reader should be able to understand this article on its own without clicking away and researching every concept and topic references. It's also unclear why Carol Burke is notable or her thoughts are relevant […] Similarly, the General's responses aren't really relevant. Both Burke and Westmoreland are discussing "Napalm Sticks", and discussing cadences' oft (perceived) offensiveness. Does that come through clearer to you by reversing the order and combining the first two paragraphs in the 'Cadence' section? As for Professor Burke's notability, "The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article." As a USNA professor she's not only sufficiently reliable to be a source, but also has an particularly salient position from which to observe military traditions. The bit about the Navy felt too long and structured like a narrative. It also feels not-quite-clinical enough Operation Hollywood characterizes the Navy's response as objecting to the inaccurate X, Y, and Z, and then pointing to alleged deprecation of "Napalm Sticks" to back up their objections. Stewart himself knew better because of his own experiences: A and B, and so went to the USNA to get concrete support for his position: C. I originally wrote the paragraph more chronologically, but it became awfully wordy and reprtitive, and so I opted for this conciser prose. Am I making sense here? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 23:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Possible Culture and/or Legacy section?

I saw this article listed in CAT:REF, but the ref issue(s) had already been fixed. So anyway, I decided to look for an image for the infobox in the 'Song' section, and instead, ran across these items (maybe for possible inclusion in the article in a 'Culture/Legacy' section, I don't know) —

An image at commons from the Helping Hand GI underground newspaper from June 1971 (mentioned in the article).
Senator Stephen M. Young wrote about the song in his column for the Washington C.H. Record-Herald, that was published in August 1970 (on the left side of page), which included selected lyrics from the song, and an anecdote about a helicopter pilot who wanted to mimeograph the song, but was told it wasn't "official business", and this pre-dates the June 1971 newspaper.
It was featured in the November 1972 edition of the underground comix Slow Death.
It's also been featured in numerous military songbooks:
It managed to find its way into the Congressional Record 91st Congress 2nd Session July 30 - August 7, 1970
An article in The Kentucky Kernel from March 1970, which credits the poem to the 75th Infantry Division, rather than the 1st Cavalry Division.
Article in The Baltimore Sun from June 15, 1970, credits the song to a group of helicopter pilots.

Anyway, I'm dropping these here for consideration. Cheers. Isaidnoway (talk) 23:48, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Holy moley, that's amazing! Thanks so much for doing the legwork and sharing! I'm not able to delve deeply into an article until probably this weekend, but I'll definitely make room then to go through this treasure. Thanks again! — Fourthords | =Λ= | 21:33, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love to include that image, but it'd overwhelm the article as-is; in the meantime, I've gone ahead and created Commons:Category:Napalm Sticks to Kids and linked there from the article. I've included the senator's observation (especially since it backs up the timeline), but I don't think the declined mimeographing is salient? Slow Death isn't a great source, but then again, neither is the primary source of the band itself, so at least the two coroborate each other, which is marginally better than not. There's nothing really to cite in the song books as they're just lyrical, and the make clear their unofficial nature—copyrighting the new ones and ambiguating the status of the older ones, so I just listed them as examples of further publishing. Before even reading the Kentucky Kernel article, I'd wanna check consensus about student newspapers and reliability. I've expanded the article, here. What are your thoughts? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 23:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]