Travelin' Soldier

This song was written and originally recorded by Austin-based Country music singer-songwriter Bruce Robison in 1996. The song takes place during the Vietnam War, and is about an American soldier who befriends a waitress shortly before he enters the army. He writes her letters, as he has no one else to write to, and when he dies, she is the only one who knows. In a 2013 Songfacts interview, Robison told the story of the song: "I was working with in a kitchen in Austin was getting called up in the reserves for the first Iraq War. And generally that was the situation that started me thinking about that. I set the song in Vietnam, but those were the things that I was thinking about. If you'll recall, it took a long time for us to send all the people over, and there was months of amassing our forces over in Kuwait in the first Gulf War. Those were the thoughts going through my head."

This was a #1 Country hit for The Dixie Chicks, but it dropped off the charts shortly after a March 10, 2003 concert in London where Natalie Maines introduced the song by saying, "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas." This statement caused an uproar among Bush supporters, many of which were Country music fans. Radio stations responded by dropping this song from their playlists, and in some cases, banning The Dixie Chicks completely. Their 2006 song "Not Ready To Make Nice" is about this incident.