“Welcome Home” is sung and produced by Gordy Thomas, a Vietnam veteran, and long time customer of Medals ofAmerica. He co-wrote the music and lyrics to “Welcome Home” with Nashville songwriters Bob Regan, ASCAP, and Regie HAMM, SESAC, while participating in a P.T.S.D. recovery program “Operation Song“.
The song, full of masterful guitar and soulful vocals goes through the experience of returning home from Vietnam and the mental, physical, and emotional aftermath that some continue to suffer from.
All Vietnam veterans have probably experienced all of the struggles Thomas touches on in his song. Speaking with Medals of America, Gordy recalls it was in 1969 that American news reporters inspired protestors to call troops as “Baby Killers”. As troops returned to American apripots, many were verbally and physically harassed by protestors, even spit on.
Gordy sings about his frustration with the VA, knowing that many other veterans struggled in the 1970s and 1980s continuing today, with undiagnosed PTSD, homelessness, and post-Vietnam illnesses, and even suicide.
Thomas himself served in an Artillery unit in Vietnam and returned home in 1972. In 2004 to 2005 Thomas was homeless and living in his truck and a tent shelter for veterans, until the V.A. acknowledge his service-connected disabilities and began providing him with meaningful therapy and compensation benefits.
At a parade in Nashville, Tennessee two “angels” properly welcomed him home, for the first time.
Listen below:
Gordy Thomas, BMI/Bob Regan, ASCAP/RegieHamm,SESAC
© 2015 Cotten Lee Thomas Music, BMI/Operation Song Publishing, ASCAP/Babagabarino Music, SESAC/BE Creative Music, SESAC
