Hero of War (4:13)

The song, “Hero of War”, from the fifth studio album by American punk rock band Rise Against “Appeal to Reason(released in North America on October 7, 2008) is about an Iraq War Veteran looking back on his war experiences. It is described by Rolling Stone as an “ambivalent aggro-folk track”. McIlrath said of the song, “I wanted to take the perspective of ‘What is the war going to be looked back on as?’” He went on to say, “There are not many songs… talking about what’s going on during eight years of occupation in Iraq. That, combined with meeting active soldiers and retired soldiers at our shows and hearing those stories about what is going on on the ground amid all the bullshit, showed me the differences from what is really happening to what is happening in the news media. I just thought that this needed to go into a song.” He said about the song in another interview, “It was a way to document what’s going on, like other artists documented for their generation and for generations to come.”

Songwriters: Barnes, Brandon; Chasse, Christopher; Mcilrath, Timothy; Principe, Joseph Daniel;

The lyrics:

He said, “Son, have you seen the world?
Well, what would you say if I said that you could?
Just carry this gun, you’ll even get paid”
I said, “That sounds pretty good”

Black leather boots, spit shined so bright
They cut off my hair but it looks alright
We marched and we sang
We all became friends as we learned how to fight

A hero of war, yeah that’s what I’ll be