Teary Eyed Song – Hero of War – Rise Against

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I am putting this up today due to it being Memorial Day here in the US. I thought this might be kind of fitting. Even though this song is about those that survive war I thought it fit well with the day. Sorry I think I started to ramble at some point in here. Hero of War was released in May 2009 but was not a hit on the charts. It was never released as a single but they did make a video for it. I wont get into the meaning of the song as there have been many guesses at what they were trying to say. To me this song is about those of us that joined the military in time of peace and then eventually seen combat. Recruiters tell you about all the good things but not the bad. Some of those things will stay with you the rest of your life, like it or not. When you experience combat you are going to do things that you might never have thought you could do. This song in my opinion is about a guy who seen combat and did things that might not have been right but nothing about combat is right. He then saw himself not as a hero but someone that did wrong due to combat stress and pressure. It’s easy for others to not know or understand what it is like to be in combat and I understand that. This song reminds me of people who sat safely on their couch and then tell me what was right or wrong about things that happened, tell me that what I did was good or bad. It’s easy to say what you would or wouldn’t have done, when you never experience it. He doesn’t feel like a hero, none of us do. We just did what we had to, to keep ourselves and our friends alive so we could get back home to our families. Most everyone could careless about the politics, we just want to get home in one piece. This song gets me teared up every time I hear it. I know the stress of combat and the pressure it puts on you. I know the feeling of not wanting people to look at you like you did something good when so much of combat is bad. I know how much it changes you and there is no going back. I know what it is like to have people look at you completely different than before.