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The US Marines’ Rifleman’s Creed is an interesting text. In it, the soldier equates himself with a piece of machinery. The machinery has a male gender (“I will learn it as a brother”), though in Full Metal Jacket, which made the creed famous, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman tells his recruits to give their rifles female names. (See film clip here (NSFW).) Two metal songs have incorporated the creed in opposite ways. On 1992’s Soul of a New Machine, Fear Factory sampled the Full Metal Jacket clip in “Crisis.” The song may be Fear Factory’s finest moment. If Godflesh wrote an anti-war death metal song, “Crisis” would be it. On the other hand, At War’s “Semper Fi,” (from Infidel, which comes out today on Heavy Artillery) uses the creed unironically. In contrast to the pacifism typical of ’80s thrash, At War are staunchly pro-military (“To the Corps I still remain / This will not change / I am at my nation’s call / Always faithful”). Will we hear At War in military recruitment TV adverts?
Fear Factory – CrisisAt War – Semper Fi
At War:
Amazon (CD)
Amazon (MP3)
eMusic (MP3)
Heavy Artillery (CD)
One of my college classmates was an ex-Marine. He was the only classmate I knew who owned huge rifles and would talk openly about that fact. Now I understand why.
that's one of the most fucked up, dehumanizing things i've ever read…i'm never going to look at a military recruiter the same way again…
well considering what Marines do, this should not be a shock by any stretch. They drink some strong Kool-Aid to say the least, but it is a conscious choice they make.
metal's relationship with the military has always fascinated me. at the same time it tries to appropriate that same sense of macho power and violence coupled with a decidedly anti-social/nonconformist streak. even the way somebody like slayer would write an ostensibly anti-war song like "expendable youth" or "mandatory suicide" while at the same time practically relishing military insignia and clothing just shows how deep that cognitive dissonance tends to run. the simultaneous repulsion and attraction to those kinds of themes is intriguing.
@ Andrew Childers – I would say for metal's relationship to the military it is an attraction to the power (real and symbolic-symbolic such as in military uniform), but coupled with the distaste for the purging of individuality. It's an institution of immense power, but its also an institution of pure order.