Their Song Strikes a Patriotic Chord

Operation Desert Storm has displaced Pam Kirby and John Vanselow this Independence Day, but you’re not likely to hear them complaining.

Kirby and Vanselow, a pair of musicians from Thousand Oaks, expect to spend today smiling and waving on a parade float in the Anaheim Hills. Their claim to fame--an original song inspired by images from the Persian Gulf War--will be blaring from nearby speakers.

“It starts off with synthesizer sounds, then an acoustic guitar comes in, and the beat picks up,” said Vanselow, who plays guitar and keyboards. “I would say the style is like a Top 40 rock song.”

The song’s title is “Proud Soldiers.” Kirby has called it an “attempt to offer comfort in these trying times of sacrifice.” For her and Vanselow, it has also been an opportunity to be heard in places they’ve never been heard before.

From 1983 until last year, Vanselow, 30, served as general manager of a music store. He left the job in August, 1990, he said, so that he and Kirby, 31, could concentrate on careers on the entertainment end of the music business. In late January, Kirby woke from a nap in front of her television and saw the battered face of Lt. Jeffrey N. Zaun, then a prisoner of war. Within about half an hour, she had written most of “Proud Soldiers,” marrying new words to music that she, Vanselow and collaborator Joe Caruso had already been working on.

“Shot down from grace in a flame of glory,” the song begins. “On freedom’s wings he rode. God speed our soldiers home.”

In February, Kirby and Vanselow enlisted producer Jimmy Hotz and a few background singers, and recorded the song in the home studio that occupies one of their bedrooms. They labeled the group Haven.

Then they went looking for an audience and found Air Force Master Sgt. Brandon Williams, a veteran broadcaster with the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in Sun Valley. Williams chose “Proud Soldiers” as the first selection on his program “The Desert Mailbag,” which was made available to some 400 Armed Forces stations worldwide.

More promotional help came from Kirby’s sister, Lisa Dodge, an Orange County resident who offered KEZY-FM (95.9) a tape and a reminder that her sister grew up in Mission Viejo. Her gambit worked, and the 3 1/2-minute tune got an airing. And another. And another.

Since early March, the station has been playing the song daily. In mid-June, said assistant program director Andy Stevens, requests for it were still coming in.

“It’s been an incredible thing,” said Stevens. “I had suspected that it would meet with some popularity because of the timeliness of the theme. But I had no idea it would go this far.”

The song got another boost when KABC Channel 7 in Los Angeles used the music over its closing credits on Memorial Day weekend, then followed up with a feature story a few days later.

“Pretty much everything has happened that we wanted to,” said Vanselow recently, sounding mildly dazed.

On Saturday, they appeared at a Camp Pendleton homecoming celebration. Today they have the Anaheim Hills parade appearance, where they’re expected to ride in a horse-drawn carriage with other radio station personalities.

And later this month, their first commercial recording should be out--a self-financed pressing of 4,000 compact discs and 1,000 cassettes, each containing “Proud Soldiers” and three other songs.

So far, said Vanselow, music retailers have been receptive, and a couple of major record labels have been interested, as well.

“But we don’t want people to think, ‘Oh, they’re just trying to make money,’ ” he said. With that in mind, the couple have worked out a plan with military officials at Camp Pendleton. The musicians’ net proceeds from the song, Vanselow said, will be donated to U.S. military families around the world.