In Vietnam, every soldier, it seemed, had a Zippo. "I carried one," Desimone says. "I had it engraved." With the engravings Zippos became the one place soldiers could express themselves.

Similarly, a standard military issue item from that time — the Vietnam War Zippo lighter — now serves to collectively capture the various moods and sentiments of the 1960s and 1970s, the tiny ...

This lighter was inscribed with a map of Vietnam and the initials "D.L. Kelley." Zippo has a documented history of manufacturing lighters for the military. Throughout the years, finding its owner ...

There’s no way to know with absolute certainty if the lighter really came back from Vietnam. It has all the right markings for a 1969 Zippo, but counterfeit Vietnam Zippos exist.

CD cover of 'Zippo Songs.' American soldiers serving in Vietnam often had their chrome Zippo lighters engraved with terse sayings, from the confidently patriotic to the darkly sarcastic.

VietNamNet Bridge – Zippo lighters are an inseparable tool of many American soldiers in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. They are not only lighters but also “ambassadors” that unveil deep messages of ...

The Zippo lighter was a tool, a talisman and more to American GIs during the Vietnam War. Artist Bradford Edwards calls the carvings on the lighters "pure art without ambition" — personal ...

Composer Phil Kline saw lyrics in the engravings made on cigarette lighters owned by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Veteran William Crapser saw memories of a hell on earth. Jeff Lunden reports.

The Vietnam War, which ran from 1959 to 1975, was a bloody Cold War-era conflict that claimed millions of lives and left countless soldiers and natives traumatised by what they had endured.

In "Zippo Songs," Kline includes 26 sayings engraved on Vietnam War-era lighters. The New Yorker reviewed the composition in 2004, calling it "one of the most brutally frank song cycles ever penned.