Thought I'd throw out my most iconic song for every American War. The more modern the war, the tougher it was to pick. Feel free to add or detract from my list. The only criteria is it has to be a song the veterans would know and it has to be an American composer. My picks:

American Revolution, Yankee Doodle, Traditional:



These first three are cheating a little as the tunes are from the UK but the words are definitely American.

War of 1812, The Star-Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key:



This one was sung by the soldiers so much that it supposedly gave rise to the Mexican slang of Gringo.

Mexican War, Green Grow the Lilacs, Traditional:



Civil War, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe:



There was another American side in this war, so:

Civil War, Dixie, Daniel Emmett:



The ship band of the USS Olympia supposedly played this John Phillip Sousa as Dewey steamed into Manila Bay

Spanish-American War, El Capitan, John Phillip Sousa (best band composer of all time):



World War I, Over There, George M. Cohan:



World War II, Moonlight Serenade, Glenn Miller:



Korean War, Unforgettable, Nat King Cole:



Vietnam, Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag, Country Joe McDonald:



Desert Storm, God Bless the USA, Lee Greenwood:



War on Terror, Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue, Toby Kieth:

"Will You Come to the Bower? " was played at the Battle of San Jacinto. What is the most accurate version of this song?

As I said, it got harder the more recent it got. I went between those two songs for Vietnam and finally settled on Country Joe because people were singing it well before Fortunate Son came out and even after. I lived that era and that was my take. Obviously Fortunate Son is a better song but the other was more impactful during the war. The Animals We Got to Get Out of this Place might have been the ultimate pick but the Animals were British.

Another worthy pick would have been Barry Sadler's Ballad of the Green Berets."

Here is a pretty good one but it is an all Irish tune with a geographical and historical tour of Ireland with particular emphasis on the 1798 Revolution.

John Brown's Body by Venet

I would venture that "While We Were Marching Through Georgia" should get an honorable mention.

BQ78 said:

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As I said, it got harder the more recent it got. I went between those two songs for Vietnam and finally settled on Country Joe because people were singing it well before Fortunate Son came out and even after. I lived that era and that was my take. Obviously Fortunate Son is a better song but the other was more impactful during the war. The Animals We Got to Get Out of this Place might have been the ultimate pick but the Animals were British.

Another worthy pick would have been Barry Sadler's Ballad of the Green Berets."

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And from the point of view of a GWOT ground pounder, the iconic song has got to be Drowning Pool, Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.

I don't know how popular this tune was, but it was important to my dad. I'd never heard of it, and came to know about it in a strange way.

My dad died in 1989, and after his death I found a roster with the names of the Marines in his platoon. I spoke on the phone with several, corresponded with several more, met one in person. Then years later, I was posting pictures in a Facebook group regarding Tarawa and though some of the pictures included my dad, quite a few did not and there was nothing written on the back to identify any of them. One of the pictures drew a response from someone, a guy named Ken, he said one of the two Marines in the picture was his brother who was killed in the first day of the fight. I was suspicious, but did some checking and sure enough it was his brother.

Months later, Ken and I were exchanging comments on the page and I mentioned that one of the guys in my dad's platoon had mentioned in a letter to me that he could still hear my dad singing this song in the early morning when my dad was cleaning his BAR. He said the words mentioned something about angels singing. When I mentioned this to Ken, within moments he posted this YouTube video. Small world kind of thing.

The Bing Crosby ones are good but my second place was the Andrew Sisters with don't sit under the Apple Tree (with third being the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy:

White Christmas was more poignant due to the Battle of the Bulge