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Marine sings answer to Dixie Chicks hit

Cpl. David Thibodeaux was in Iraq with 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, when the Dixie Chicks partnered with anti-war group MoveOn.org in 2004. Despite the band making headlines with anti-war views, he didn’t know much about them, he says.

Nevertheless, Thibodeaux now sings “Not Ready to End the Fight,” an “answer song” to the Dixie Chicks’ 2006 anti-war hit, “Not Ready to Make Nice.”

“I’ve seen so many good things happen in Iraq, and I don’t think it’s time for the war to end,” said Thibodeaux, a member of the Chemical and Biological Incident Response Force. “Anybody who doesn’t think there are terrorists out there should open their eyes.”

Featuring backing music from members of Toby Keith’s Easy Money Band, the song has been played on radio stations across the country. A music video will be released soon.

How did a Louisiana native stationed in Indian Head, Md., find himself recording music in Nashville? It began when another Marine, Maj. Deryl Michael, and Tim Hernandez, a friend who had worked in the music business, watched the Dixie Chicks accept their Grammy on TV in 2007. They decided that night to write a response song and find an active-duty serviceman to sing it.

“It didn’t have to be a Marine, but it had to be someone in the military who had already been to Iraq or Afghanistan to lend credibility to the song,” said Michael, a staff secretary at Marine Forces Reserve in New Orleans.

Thanks in part to a 2004 Associated Press photograph taken of Thibodeaux holding a guitar in Iraq, they eventually found him in Maryland.

“I was a little intimidated when I found out who I’d be playing with,” Thibodeaux said. “But they were really great to me and even thanked me for my service. It was a great experience.”

Multimedia:

See the video for Thibodeaux’s “Not Ready to End the Fight”