On Hard Rock and the Military

On Hard Rock and the Military: There's something quite fitting (and somewhat apropos) about mixing hard rock music with military operations. I mean, when you're engaging in war's infamous game of "kill or be killed," there's a certain aggressiveness that needs to infiltrate one's mind in order to function. In the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, for example, U.S. forces, particularly mechanized divisions of tanks and humvees were very fond of blasting songs such as Metallica's "Enter Sandman" over loud speakers as they moved across the Arabian Desert. I cannot even begin to imagine what the local Bedouin nomads must have thought when swarms of American military machines whizzed by their desert huts. But other than perhaps major stimulants like crystal methamphetamine, which many German soldiers were known to use in World War II, hard rock music is a tremendous motivator in wartime environments. In short, it's hard rock's frequent combination of distorted guitars, double-bass drums, and raspy lyrics that makes the genre a "natural" soundtrack for the military.