My Music, My War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (Music / Culture) PDF
Preview My Music, My War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (Music / Culture)
My Music, My War Lisa Gilman M Y M U S I C , M Y WA R The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan Wesleyan University Press Middletown, Connecticut Wesleyan University Press Middletown CT 06459 www.wesleyan.edu/wespress © 2016 Lisa Gilman All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Mindy Basinger Hill Typeset in Minion Pro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gilman, Lisa, 1969– My music, my war: the listening habits of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan / Lisa Gilman. pages cm.—(Music culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8195-7599-9 (cloth: alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8195-7600-2 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Iraq War, 2003–2011—Music and the war. 2. Afghan War, 2001—Music and the war. 3. United States—Armed Forces—Iraq—Attitudes. 4. United States—Armed Forces—Afghanistan—Attitudes. I. Title. ML3916.G53 2016 780.88'355—dc23 2015022965 5 4 3 2 1 Cover photo: Coming of age through war: Cpl. Tyler Van Effen [Image 3 of 7]. Photo by James Clark. Courtesy of Department of Defense. To the veterans who so generously participated in this project. THANK YOU. CONTENTS Preface ix Acknowledgments xv ONE Introduction 1 TWO Setting the Scene 19 THREE Musicking at Work and Leisure 34 FOUR Music as a Sound Track of War 52 FIVE Music, Gender, and the Paradox of Masculinity 80 SIX “Music Doesn’t Judge”: Managing Feelings at War 113 SEVEN Coming Home 137 EIGHT Music and Political Transformation 168 NINE As Time Goes By 185 APPENDIX People Interviewed 193 Notes 199 References 205 Index 217 PREFACE I first began to think about doing a project with Americans participating in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2004. I was concerned that our country was sending troops to two wars that we had initiated, yet there was little information available at the time from media or scholarly sources about the people fighting those wars. The little that I heard through television, radio, or print media was usually cloaked in polarizing rhetoric from one political side or the other to bolster an argument. I heard some portrayals from the right side of the political spectrum about the heroes fighting to protect Americans and to bring freedom to Afghanis and Iraqis. Alternately, I heard stories from the left about soldiers as victims who were severely injured or had lost their lives fighting in the wars, which were presented as unjust. Missing was information about the identities of these men and women or about their perspectives on what it was like to be at war and what impact the experience had on them in the short and long terms. The first phase of the research began in the summer of 2005, when I spent two weeks in Colorado Springs, Colorado, home to multiple military establish- ments — F ort Carson Army Base, Peterson Air Force Base, and the United States Air Force Academy — and near to Schriever Air Force Base. As a folklorist also trained in ethnomusicology, my plan was to conduct ethnographic research that would include observing the dance practices of soldiers in between deployments and interviewing them about the corporal dimensions of their work and leisure time activities. Right around the time that I went to Colorado Springs, troops had been discouraged by their command from talking to reporters because of concerns about negative publicity. I was assured by the public information officer at Fort Carson that soldiers off base were protected by free speech laws; however, I quickly found that soldiers whom I did not already know were reluctant to talk
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