My Music, My War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (Music / Culture)

248 Pages·2016·9.487 MB·English

by  Lisa Gilman

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