As others have noted, a "Sky Pilot" is a chaplain. I was an infantryman in Vietnam but a bit later than when this song came out. I would characterize it as not so much anti-war as anti-chaplain. The lyrics are painting the chaplain as someone who blesses the boys as they stand in line and sends THEM out to fight the war, while he smugly feels good about what he has done for them and then STAYS BEHIND - (He'll stay behind and he'll meditate). So, the message is, "Don't worry, Boys. God is on your side and He will protect you - alive or dead... Me? Oh I won't be going out there with you..."
Yeah, thanks, a LOT, Chaplain! Sure, why don't you just stay there, 'in the rear, with the gear?' WE'LL go take care of the war.
If our chaplain behaved like that, I'd have resented him, too. But he didn't. He spent quite a bit of time with us, either up on the Firebase or out on patrol. I'm saying that he WASN'T generally back in Chi Lai, the big base camp by the South China Sea, aka "the rear." He was out where the war was going on. A big salute to Chaplain Davidson, Americal Division, 196 LIB up in I Corps, 1971.
As others have noted, a "Sky Pilot" is a chaplain. I was an infantryman in Vietnam but a bit later than when this song came out. I would characterize it as not so much anti-war as anti-chaplain. The lyrics are painting the chaplain as someone who blesses the boys as they stand in line and sends THEM out to fight the war, while he smugly feels good about what he has done for them and then STAYS BEHIND - (He'll stay behind and he'll meditate). So, the message is, "Don't worry, Boys. God is on your side and He will protect you - alive or dead... Me? Oh I won't be going out there with you..."
Yeah, thanks, a LOT, Chaplain! Sure, why don't you just stay there, 'in the rear, with the gear?' WE'LL go take care of the war.
If our chaplain behaved like that, I'd have resented him, too. But he didn't. He spent quite a bit of time with us, either up on the Firebase or out on patrol. I'm saying that he WASN'T generally back in Chi Lai, the big base camp by the South China Sea, aka "the rear." He was out where the war was going on. A big salute to Chaplain Davidson, Americal Division, 196 LIB up in I Corps, 1971.