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United States News Title: In a special announcement made Wednesday by Gov. Mike Rounds, the country group Big & Rich will perform their tribute to Vietnam veterans, called the "8th of November," during the Vietnam War Memorial Dedication ceremony PIERRE - "We had a friend invite us up to South Dakota years ago, and we fell in love with your state," Big Kenny said. "We really enjoyed visiting the Black Hills and our favorite little town there in Deadwood, and before we had a career that took off like it has now, we were playing in a little bar there. There was this nice gentlemen wearing this beautiful top hat by the name of Niles Harris, who was our bartender and we befriended him. He took us up to some old gold mines, and in the midst of traveling with him we saw all this war memorabilia in his (Ford) Bronco. He then told us this most incredible story of when he was a 19-year-old soldier." Harris was a private in the 173rd Airborne Brigade in 1965, when on Nov. 8, his brigade was ambushed. Harris was one of a handful of men who survived the assault. A total of 48 Americans lost their lives during that ambush, and it is still considered a great historical loss for America. After the ambush, Harris spent eight hours laying on the jungle floor with gunshot wounds, and he spent about two years in military hospitals after that. Harris eventually went on to complete three more tours of duty in Vietnam before retiring. "Over the next couple years we got to know Niles so well that he told us the story of how every year on Nov. 8, he'd put on a suit, go out by himself to have a dinner and throw back a couple cocktails to remember all of his friends who were lost that day," said Big Kenny. "We were so moved by this story that over the next couple of years John and I kept working on this song, and we came to the realization that most of those guys never got the homecoming they deserved, and we wanted to write a song that honored them and that would be here forever." "We got a letter from a mother who saw her son in the (video), and she said during the war she would watch the news hoping to see a picture of him, now 40 years later she saw him. It made her happy and proud that her son was remembered, and we want to continue that process," Rich said. The duo said the song was a way to honor Vietnam War veterans. "Those guys (in Harris' brigade) had all been together for about a year and a half and they had trained together, but then when they got to 'Nam, in a blink of an eye that day, all (Harris') friends were gone. Niles just made it clear how really important it was that we remember those guys," Big Kenny said. "When some of these guys came back to the states after the war, they had to duck into bathrooms to change out of their uniform they were so shunned, they got no appreciation or homecoming. We've never had a bullet shot at us, but being songwriters, this was our opportunity to let these guys know we appreciate them and honor them."
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