"What are they gonna do, send you to Vietnam?"

June 11, 2008 6:13 PM

[NSFW]"The following program is in living color and has been rated X by the Vietnam academy of maggots. The purpose of this program is to bring vital news, information and hard acid rock to the first termers and non-re-enlistees in the Republic of Vietnam. Radio First Termer operates under no Air Force regulations or manuals. In the event of a vice squad raid this program will automatically self-destruct." Radio First Termer was a pirate radio show broadcast by "Dave Rabbit," an anonymous USAF sergeant, for 63 hours between January 1st and 21st, 1971, out of the back room of a brothel in Saigon, gracing the dial at 69 MHz and 690 AM. Fearing reprisal from his superiors, Dave Rabbit then shut Radio First Termer down and, after returning to the States, went back to living a normal life. 34 years later, while helping his son on a homework assignment, Dave came across old recordings of his show. He's since revived his old persona via podcast, and has also brought Radio First Termer back to the warzone--to Baghdad, Iraq.

More of Dave Rabbit in the Internet Age can be found here.

posted by not_on_display (11 comments total)

Interesting. But weirdly, Radio First Termer's wikipedia page has this line, in bold, at the end:

"Dave Rabbit Has Reviewed This Page For Authenticity - May 28, 2008"

When did Wikipedia start doing this?
posted by JHarris at 7:00 PM on June 11, 2008

Since 20:27, 28 May 2008 through 02:19, 12 June 2008.
posted by ryanrs at 7:41 PM on June 11, 2008

Times are coordinated universal. Policies, not so much.
posted by ryanrs at 7:46 PM on June 11, 2008

When did Wikipedia start doing this?

Wikipedia doesn't. Someone reading your post has already removed it.
posted by Justinian at 8:08 PM on June 11, 2008

> When did Wikipedia start doing this?
Wikipedia doesn't. Someone reading your post has already removed it.

I didn't even blink at the "Reviewed by Dave Rabbitt" stamp--I'm so clueless when it comes to what is and isn't acceptable on Wikipedia, but I'm glad that it works! Yay, internet!!
posted by not_on_display at 8:15 PM on June 11, 2008

Pretty interesting; 540,000 people in-country at the peak, only ~100,000 of them combat arms, meant that a lot of servicemen had a lot of time to get into a lot of trouble.
posted by tachikaze at 11:45 PM on June 11, 2008

The ones who were stationed in places where trouble was available, sure. Rabbit was probably living at Tan Son Nhut Airbase in Saigon, in an air-conditioned barracks with indoor plumbing. Unless he was in the APs, he probably didn't have a weapon.

Army support troops were pretty much all issued rifles, and most lived in posts removed from the cities, in big patches of dirt scraped free of the jungle. In those places, air-conditioning was for equipment, and plumbing was scarce. Many, if not most of those who were not combat MOS came under hostile fire with frequency that varied with their duties and location.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:02 AM on June 12, 2008

On the front of the shirt is a white rabbit ... the rabbit is holding a sign which reads "Fuck it before it fucks you."

I remember coming across some Radio First Termer airchecks (all from that one tape, I guess) around 2001. Now that I've read the Salon article and learned he'd only had about 63 broadcast hours andthat the tapes that circulated underground were just from one show, I'm amazed that much survived.
posted by Spatch at 5:20 AM on June 12, 2008

Anyway, kind of sad more people haven't commented on this post. I've love to hear a sample of the program, unfortunately Firefox dies without comment when I try to load the first link in the FPP.
posted by JHarris at 4:09 PM on June 12, 2008

^JHarris: Try downloading the show from Rabbit's podomatic site ("Baghdad Iraq" link). Here are the direct links.
Part 1 (48Kbps, 17MB)
Part 2 (192Kbps, 70MB)
Part 3 (48Kbps, 17MB)
Part 4 (192Kbps, 67MB)

The Baghdad show can also be found there. The RFT and the podomatic sites are very scattered. Sorry to hear about the browser fuckup!
posted by not_on_display at 4:53 PM on June 12, 2008

(The links above are for the Saigon 1971 broadcast.)
posted by not_on_display at 4:57 PM on June 12, 2008