By God's grace?

Luke Stricklin, I have no doubt, would like to punch me in the head.

Mr. Stricklin was featured on CNN a few days ago -- a young soldier home from Iraq who has penned a patriotic little country ditty entitled "American by God's Amazing Grace." The main point of the song is that, if you had served with Mr. Stricklin in Iraq, you'd be very grateful that God allowed you to be born an AMERICAN:

Well when you've seen the things that I've seen
things don't seem so bad
quit worrying 'bout what you ain't got, thank God for what you have
Cause you could be raising your family in this place
but you were born in America, By God's Amazing Grace!!!!

I've little argument with this sentiment (although I might observe there are places in America damn neart as God-forsaken as the hell holes of Iraq). The lyrics to which I object -- which objection, I am certain, would incite Mr. Stricklin to assault and batter me -- are the following:

You want to talk about it, you better keep it short
cause I got a lot of lost time I gotta make up for.
Really don't care why Bush went into Iraq
I know for sure what I done there and I'm damn sure proud of that.
You got something bad to say about the USA
you better save it for different ears 'less you want to crawl away.

Here we have the warrior in full battle cry. "Really don't care why Bush went into Iraq." To Mr. Stricklin the WHY of the war is irrelevant ("Theirs not to reason why," etc.); all that matters is that he did his duty: "I know for sure what I done there and I'm damn sure proud of that." And if you dare suggest that Uncle Sam is on the wrong side of this war? Well, pal, them's fightin words. Prepare to meet your maker.

The timing here is interesting. It's been a while since we've been favored with a pro-war song -- patriotic gore such as Darryl Worley's "Have You Forgotten?" or Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)" got a lot of radio play near the beginning of the War on Terror, when the country's blood was up. For the most part these songs have faded with the public's enthusiasm for the war. They've been displaced by anti-war songs such as Billy Bragg's "The Price of Oil," Steve Earle's "Rich Man's War," Eliza Gilkyson's "Highway 9," or the Rolling Stones' forthcoming "Sweet Neo Con."

I say "displaced," but that's not quite right. The pro-war songs received a good deal of play on mainstream radio, especially country stations. Toby Keith's bellicose growl went echoing through every laundromat across the land. The anti-war songs have never reached the ears of Clear Channel listeners, can only be found on alternative radio and the internet (and I doubt that the Stones' new cut will be an exception). No surprise, then, that when a belated pro-war song is penned, the writer should get prime facetime on CNN. Meanwhile Earle and Gilkyson must settle for the relatively modest stages of Democracy Now and Air America.

Poor Luke Stricklin. Listening to his song you can sense his violent ambivalence toward the war, his struggle to reconcile contradictory feelings. He tells us that he doesn't care about why "Bush went into Iraq." Note here the Commander-in-Chief is referred to as "Bush," not "President Bush" or even "Mr. Bush." Stricklin is clearly distancing himself from the prime maker of the war. This suggests that he's aware of the possibility that Bush's motives might not have been the best. Yet he does not want to hear criticism of the president, hasn't got the time, "got a lot of lost time I gotta make up for." Lost time? Does that not indicate time wasted? Is the war a just cause or a waste of time? If it is a waste of time, what of Mr. Stricklin's pride in his service? Is he protesting too much there?

Might not Mr. Stricklin's refusal to listen to criticism of the war be construed as a species of flight: he resists listening for fear that he'll discover he has been duped -- horribly duped -- by Dubya and the boys? Perhaps Mr. Stricklin, deep down, already knows this, knows that he's been suckered. Perhaps he is struggling to repress his desire to punch in the head, not yours truly or Cindy Sheehan or any other war protestor, but instead George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld -- perhaps even himself?

Can you say Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? "American by God's Amazing Grace" positively reeks of it. It's all there: the trauma ("I ain't never been to hell / but it couldn't be any worse than this place"), the uncertainty ("Tell my wife don't worry 'cause I know what to do / it makes you feel better sometimes, but don't know if it's true"), the anger ("And I laugh in your face when you say you got it bad"). Rather than stoking his rage by listening to the blood-spattered war anthems of his mentor Toby Keith, Mr. Stricklin probably would be better off listening to songs wherein PTSD is explicitly thematized, songs such as John Prine's "Sam Stone," Steve Earle's "Home to Houston," and Tom Waits' "Day After Tomorrow."

Little chance of that, however, given Mr. Stricklin's strong identification with the military. As an article in the latest Newsweek notes, "PTSD is one acronym the military does not like. It prefers 'temporary adjustment disorder,' with an emphasis on the temporary."

Yes, soldiers like Luke Stricklin are just a TAD crazy. May God's amazing grace deliver them from this evil.