Saturday, August 14, 2004
The New Yorker
10:08 PM
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Posted by
Morly
OVER THERE
BLAM
by Lauren Collins
The New Yorker June 29, 2009
IIn the winter of 2004, Jonathan Pieslak, a composer and an associate professor of music at City College, was researching a paper on heavy metal when he stumbled on a Web site devoted to the death-metal band Slayer. (Their songs include “The Antichrist,” “Mandatory Suicide,” and one, written from the perspective of a terrorist, called “Jihad”: “Fuck your God erase his name /A lady weeps insane with sorrow.”) On the site, a fan had written that, during the Gulf War, the band received forty per cent of its fan mail from soldiers in the Middle East. The claim turned out to be an exaggeration, but Pieslak became interested. In April, Indiana University Press published his book “Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War,” which examines the role of music in military recruiting, combat, interrogations, and morale, and explains many things about Slayer’s appeal.
First of all: listening to heavy metal, with its double-pedal bass drums and tremolo-style guitars, Pieslak writes, is a good way to prepare mentally for a mission, because it “sounds considerably like the consistent discharge of bullets fired from an automatic gun.” Colby Buzzell, an M240 Bravo machine gunner who did a yearlong tour in Iraq, told Pieslak, “I’d listen to Slayer to get all into it.” Once, Buzzell said, a guy on his patrol rigged up his MP3 player to a Humvee, and the patrol blasted theme songs from old movies—a modern-day drum-and-fife brigade. He said, “Sometimes your motivation is down and you’re like, ‘I don’t want to play soldier today.’ . . . But then you hear ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ theme song and you’re like, ‘Fuck yeah, hell yeah, I’ll go out on a mission today.’ ” For some in the Fourth Infantry Division, Lil Jon’s “I Don’t Give a Fuck” was an anthem—soldiers called it their “getting crunked” song, and they would chant its refrain until they were ready to leave the base.
At the Borders store in the Time Warner Center on a recent afternoon, Pieslak said that in another unit “Metallica was the group of choice. Then, when they got to Falluja, it switched to ‘Go to Sleep,’ by Eminem: ‘Die, motherfucker, die! / Unh, time’s up, bitch, close ya eyes.’ ” Pieslak, wearing Pumas, a T-shirt, and camouflage cargo shorts (no significance—just “what was clean”), had agreed to poke around the music section. Passing Classic Crooners, New Age, and Jazz (“You’re probably not going to see too many guys over there with George Winston CDs,” he said), he led the way to Rock, where he riffled through the “D”s. Dropkick Murphys. Drowning Pool. “Their song ‘Bodies’ is interesting,” he said, pulling out a CD that featured a woman holding a hand across her face, the word “SINNER” written across her knuckles. “It kept popping up.” Soldiers would use it both to get pumped up for battle and “to induce irritation and frustration among detainees.” (The detainees, apparently, preferred ’N Sync and Michael Jackson.) Pieslak said that a group of soldiers had made a music video in which they set their own footage and photographs to the song. They called it “Taliban Bodies.” A pair of Arkansas National Guardsmen, Pieslak writes, recorded an album in Iraq. One track, with apologies to Jimmy Buffett, was called “Mortaritaville”: “Wasted away again in Baghdad / One weekend a month, yeah, my ass / I’d like to kick my recruiter straight square in the teeth / But I know, ‘It’s my own damn fault.’ ”
Music, Pieslak writes, has always been a part of the military experience, from training cadences (“Soldier, Soldier Have You Heard”) to battle cries (Joshua’s trumpets, “Hakkaa päälle”) and “thunder runs,” in which troops descend in force upon a given area (in Baghdad, one team blasted Wagner, in homage to “Apocalypse Now”). In the book’s fourth chapter, “Music as a Psychological Tactic,” Pieslak examines a “sonic battle” between American troops—who blasted “Welcome to the Jungle,” by Guns N’ Roses, and “Hell’s Bells,” by AC/DC—and Iraqi mullahs, who tried to drown out the metal with chants of “Allahu Akbar” and Arabic music. Standing near the “J”s, he said, “Plato thought that different musical scales could have different effects on the human condition. We tend to have a misconception about music—that it is this thing that delights the senses, elevates the spirit. While I like that idea, it is only part of what music has been.” ♦
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/06/29/090629ta_talk_collins?printable=true#ixzz0X8LgppMq
BLAM
by Lauren Collins
The New Yorker June 29, 2009
IIn the winter of 2004, Jonathan Pieslak, a composer and an associate professor of music at City College, was researching a paper on heavy metal when he stumbled on a Web site devoted to the death-metal band Slayer. (Their songs include “The Antichrist,” “Mandatory Suicide,” and one, written from the perspective of a terrorist, called “Jihad”: “Fuck your God erase his name /A lady weeps insane with sorrow.”) On the site, a fan had written that, during the Gulf War, the band received forty per cent of its fan mail from soldiers in the Middle East. The claim turned out to be an exaggeration, but Pieslak became interested. In April, Indiana University Press published his book “Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War,” which examines the role of music in military recruiting, combat, interrogations, and morale, and explains many things about Slayer’s appeal.
First of all: listening to heavy metal, with its double-pedal bass drums and tremolo-style guitars, Pieslak writes, is a good way to prepare mentally for a mission, because it “sounds considerably like the consistent discharge of bullets fired from an automatic gun.” Colby Buzzell, an M240 Bravo machine gunner who did a yearlong tour in Iraq, told Pieslak, “I’d listen to Slayer to get all into it.” Once, Buzzell said, a guy on his patrol rigged up his MP3 player to a Humvee, and the patrol blasted theme songs from old movies—a modern-day drum-and-fife brigade. He said, “Sometimes your motivation is down and you’re like, ‘I don’t want to play soldier today.’ . . . But then you hear ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ theme song and you’re like, ‘Fuck yeah, hell yeah, I’ll go out on a mission today.’ ” For some in the Fourth Infantry Division, Lil Jon’s “I Don’t Give a Fuck” was an anthem—soldiers called it their “getting crunked” song, and they would chant its refrain until they were ready to leave the base.
At the Borders store in the Time Warner Center on a recent afternoon, Pieslak said that in another unit “Metallica was the group of choice. Then, when they got to Falluja, it switched to ‘Go to Sleep,’ by Eminem: ‘Die, motherfucker, die! / Unh, time’s up, bitch, close ya eyes.’ ” Pieslak, wearing Pumas, a T-shirt, and camouflage cargo shorts (no significance—just “what was clean”), had agreed to poke around the music section. Passing Classic Crooners, New Age, and Jazz (“You’re probably not going to see too many guys over there with George Winston CDs,” he said), he led the way to Rock, where he riffled through the “D”s. Dropkick Murphys. Drowning Pool. “Their song ‘Bodies’ is interesting,” he said, pulling out a CD that featured a woman holding a hand across her face, the word “SINNER” written across her knuckles. “It kept popping up.” Soldiers would use it both to get pumped up for battle and “to induce irritation and frustration among detainees.” (The detainees, apparently, preferred ’N Sync and Michael Jackson.) Pieslak said that a group of soldiers had made a music video in which they set their own footage and photographs to the song. They called it “Taliban Bodies.” A pair of Arkansas National Guardsmen, Pieslak writes, recorded an album in Iraq. One track, with apologies to Jimmy Buffett, was called “Mortaritaville”: “Wasted away again in Baghdad / One weekend a month, yeah, my ass / I’d like to kick my recruiter straight square in the teeth / But I know, ‘It’s my own damn fault.’ ”
Music, Pieslak writes, has always been a part of the military experience, from training cadences (“Soldier, Soldier Have You Heard”) to battle cries (Joshua’s trumpets, “Hakkaa päälle”) and “thunder runs,” in which troops descend in force upon a given area (in Baghdad, one team blasted Wagner, in homage to “Apocalypse Now”). In the book’s fourth chapter, “Music as a Psychological Tactic,” Pieslak examines a “sonic battle” between American troops—who blasted “Welcome to the Jungle,” by Guns N’ Roses, and “Hell’s Bells,” by AC/DC—and Iraqi mullahs, who tried to drown out the metal with chants of “Allahu Akbar” and Arabic music. Standing near the “J”s, he said, “Plato thought that different musical scales could have different effects on the human condition. We tend to have a misconception about music—that it is this thing that delights the senses, elevates the spirit. While I like that idea, it is only part of what music has been.” ♦
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/06/29/090629ta_talk_collins?printable=true#ixzz0X8LgppMq
28 comments :
CB: I read your posts to my son everyday --no censorship here...if the worst thing he does is use profanity/slang (these are not curses people) and serve his country honorably -I will be pretty lucky! Your hardcore bunch of original readers love ALL of your posts -whether they be about getting panties back with your wash, needing a sling shot in the sand box or throwing down with Al Qeada...I think our only wish is that we can all buy you a beer (or many) someday -stateside!
http://dictionary.reference.com/
There is a link at the top of their page to their thesaurus site, too. Yer welcome.
Catherder: CPU asks a lot of questions. I'd be wary about OPSEC with him.
ooops, I was trying to figure out what the small icon was at the bottom of my posts...now I know...it's the delete button, so I'll try again. Sorry!
If you're interested, I have a 3"x4" (quarter-inch thick) electronic dictionary/thesaurus combination that I don't use and would gladly send to you (or your wife for forwarding). I no longer have the instruction booklet, but it's pretty simple to figure out and it also has a bunch of word games that may(or may not,sorry, doubt they include expletives, lol) be enjoyable during the slow times...
I know you get a lot of e-mail, so if you're interested, look for my contact info in an e-mail entitled, "offering free 3x4 electronic dic/thes".
...as always, looking forward to more from you...keep on cursing and stay safe.
CB, a suggestion: you meantioned a few posts ago about the book and movie deal offers that you get regularly, and while you probably have already given this some thought, I would say to definitely retain editorial control over what they do with it, as well as to negotiate a good and reasonable percentage stake in the profits of the book or movie. The entertainment industry doesn't have a good track record for "keeping it real".
Next time they ask, say "send my lawyer a contract for review". And then... get a lawyer. I know a few good ones if you don't.
CPU, Opsec is a small mammal, a kind of vermin (sort of a rat) that frequents trash dumps in Iraq. It's related to the Gerund, but has a larger tail.
CB - my concern isn't your profanity but the effect trying to avoid it might have on your writing. If you didn't have talent you wouldn't have fans How's that? You have fans. Pretty cool. There are a lot of other soldier blogs - there are millions of blogs - but you get an enormous number of hits. Including CPUmaster with his "what is the weakest area of armor on the Stryker, by the way, just wondering." You rock.
War is a filthy, dirty, profane thing.
Why try to sugar coat it?
*chuckling to himself at This We'll Defend's definition of OPSEC*
CPU, OPSEC stands for Operational Security, meaning that you don't say anything to anyone that could compromise your mission, including persons who ask innocent-sounding but uncomfortably revealing questions in the comments section of your weblog.
Incidentally, for you anti-War on Drug types, the narcs use the term OPSEC all the time, further demonstrating that the War on Drugs really is a war.
CB. The language isn't directed at the reader... and while it may be true that in some circumstances profanity adds nothing to the conversation or the story, in the case of your writing, it crysalizes for the reader the urgent, dire fear in your "action" sequences, and the overwhelming [pick one] frustration, idiocy, boredom of others. When any language CONVEYS an emotion or the level of any emotion, it's fully appropriate.
Those who wish it censored: print it out and use a black marker. As for children, I always told my children (when young), those are adult words and you may choose to use them or not when you are an adult. As adults, they all swear up a storm when appropriate (usually when conveying frustration, idiocy and boredom inflicted by their CO's. ;-)
onelook.com
enter a word and links to several definitions appear. they also have a reverse dictionary feature that can act as a thesaurus.
DELETED?
"CB":
You are trying to shows us what really happens in Iraq from your perspective of a soldier in the terrain.
Then, if you wants to know what really happens in Iraq from a geopolitical perspective, read this:
http://www.iraq-war.ru/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=18905
and this:
http://www.iraq-war.ru/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=19160
Fallujah and, today, an-Najaf: the US occupation of Iraqi reaches the point of no return.
Try hard to scape safe of the mess. You don't deserve be deleted from Earth by the insanity of the rulers of the US Empire.
To be or not to be? Always remember that soldiers are paid to kill ... and die.
It is up to you.
Aquele abraço!
Best wishes for your action award, CB. I enjoy your posts the way they are, it's you unfiltered and you write it just as you would speak it to say a friend or peer. It's all good and look forward to your future posts, cuss as much as you f'n want.
dAMN - MY COMPUTER CRASHED! Alvaro, I must go opress some workers for I am enraged!
Anyway, before my post disappeared, I was asking how the inevitable triumph of the proletariat was going. Few setbacks? Don't get discouraged. Ever visit Mao's tomb? It was getting a little run-down, but then they installed a great gift shop and the money started rolling in and ... oops, sorry. Well, you aren't a Maoist or Stalinist anyway. They just didn't do communism right. Next time I'm sure it will work. Good luck with that.
Robre - CPU asked in another post how effective the enemy snipers were. My guess is that it is hard to understand what information is vital and what isn't if you don't understand military operations. I know that info I would have thought innocous turned out to be potentially quite helpful to the enemy after a good MI guy explained to me what information he found useful in finding things out about our enemies.
Plus, sorry about the cloak and dagger bit, but we are watching you. right now. Damn, man, quit picking your nose. Ugghhh I hate being a spy....
Start mailing your blog posts to Newsweek so people don't have to keep reading their garbage.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5709023/site/newsweek/
Stay safe dude.
Robre: You say "Not vital, not well known. (location of snack machine at FOB)"
Do soldiers cluster around it? Is there always a line? Does the enemy have indirect fire capability? Is it between the front gate and a headquarters building so that it can serve as a marker for an infiltrator suicide-bomber looking for his target, letting him know where he is and where his target building is located?
Is it possible that an exact location of the snack bar could lead to higher casualties than not knowing that information? Maybe, maybe not, but I think the point is clear - you don't know what might be valuable and might not be.
Robre,
This we'll defend was absolutely right to call me on my response to CPU. I should have known better, especially since I am a long-time member of another internet forum where we always call people on OPSEC breaches. It's not cloak and dagger, it's simple professionalism.
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DELETED THINKS!!
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1.) Álvaro Frota said...
------------------------
[...] if you wants to know what really happens in Iraq from a geopolitical perspective, read this:
http://www.iraq-war.ru/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=18905
and this:
http://www.iraq-war.ru/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=19160
Fallujah and, today, an-Najaf: the US occupation of Iraqi reaches the point of no return.
StinKerr said...
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Alvaro, Why are you posting Russian propaganda sites?
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CONCLUSION: DON'T ASK QUESTIONS. END OF DISCUSSION.
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2. Goatrancke said...
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I saw kosovo as a soldier, and I learned overthere that internal conflicts can't be solved by external forces. Once the forces are gone, the problems start again (mostley ethnical), untill DIPLOMACY can compromise.
[...] So don't think that you are making a better world by invading tiranical governments, i had the same thougts some years ago. What I saw overtheir will follow me all my live. Captains flipping in their first conflicts, orders to stand when people are killing and raping almost before your eyes,...
this we'll defend said...
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Sure wasn't the US Army. We don't employ soldiers who don't already think for themselves.
And goatbreath or whatever, thinking for yourself is great - I'm glad you are now doing it. thinking WELL is another thing. Perhaps you should practice at it some more.
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CONCLUSION: YOU ARE ALLOWED TO THINK, BUT ONLY
THE US-MILITARY THINKING IS ALLOWED TO YOU.
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Question: Who are the deleted-thinking ones?
FTWorth - bless you for your service to our nation, and thanks for the compliments.
Had you read more you would realize I am left-wing, though. Big (vast) gulf between a democrat and communism/socialism, as there is between republicans and fascism/nazism. But I would't want to lead you on - I'm a Kerry supporter. And proud of it.
Alvaro,
You claim that we are only allowed "US-military thinking". I could respect your disagreement with US foreign policy and your differing political views, but that kind of ignorance and stupidity is inexscusable. At no time have I seen or participated in an effort to force my Marines to conform to a specific way of thinking. It amazes me how many people think that uniformed servicemembers all think exactly what their superiors want.
If you knew any US servicemembers, you'd be surprised at the diversity of viewpoints and opinions among the men and women who defend this country. CB is an outstanding example. As great and unique as this blog is, CB's intelligence and free thinking IS NOT UNUSUAL. I have had conversations with my Marines in which they expressed many different opinions, including some who have said that they disagree with the ongoing war and will not vote for President Bush in November. I have never and will never hold that against them, I rate them based on their merits as a Marine, not on their political views. To do otherwise would make me unfit to lead them. Regardless of how the military in your country operates, we have not forgotten that the soldiers and Marines in our charge are citizens first and therefore entitled to their views and opinions.
Reading your posts always bring a smile, CBFTW. As to the swearing, it wasn't hard getting used to it because I know that's exactly how guys talk especially in stressful situations and when you're around other guys, hell that's probably the most word used. I can see why that guy wanted to borrow your thesaurus!!! But there's really no need to leave them out when you write and people shouldn't have to delete the cuss words - that is how a soldier among other soldiers in stressful and daily life, especially stressful situation, are going to talk and that's what makes it so real!! You stay safe and glad you're back no matter what. Much thank you's and hope your situation changes for the better. Also CONGRATS on your award, you certainly have deserved it.
Hugs
~C
Robre, your claim that this blog isn't read by the enemy is disproven by the posts from Alvaro.
Cat Herder said...
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"Alvaro, you claim that we are only allowed "US-military thinking".
Dear Cat Herder:
I have only limited english's skills, and the danger of misunderstand is hight.
I did NOT clain that there are only US-military thinking in the US-military. Of course there are not. Aftar all, we are reading "CB"'s blog and surely "CB"'s thinks coun't be classified as US-military thinking.
I just clain that StinKerr and "this we'll defend" is trying to only allow US-military thinking in this blog.
And also "Cigarette Smoking Man from the X-Files", that said:
"Robre, your claim that this blog isn't read by the enemy is disproven by the posts from Alvaro."
Take a break, guys, and think: If I am reading this blog to acquire military inteligence and let this to the iraqui resistance, why I made public that I am a marxist and I am totally against the occupation? It isn't paranoia?
Real marxists, and real trotskysts in especial, is against terrorism. Revolution is not terrorism, is a massive class struggle. And the iraqi resistance is not terrorist. If a nation occupy another, the people have the right - and the duty - to resist.
Indeed, we have a very good example of US-military thinking: everyone that don't agree with us is our enemy. And enemy is trying to kill us and must be killed...
LOL!
If your readers need to delete the expletives, they can cut and paste the stuff into any word processer and run a spell-check on it, and "replace all" when they find something they object to.
Whatever you do, don't self-censor, please! You tell it like it is, and you should. I'm a mother of two. Mine are 22 adn 25 now. I never shielded them as they were growing up. They're great kids, and they understood context and styles and settings, and all that jazz that create and incorporate language because we talked about it, they saw it demonstrated, good and bad, and that's life!
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