Lisa Gilman, My Music, My War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lisa Gilman. My Music, My War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2016. ix + 248 pp. $80.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8195-7599-9; $26.95 (paperback), 978-0-8195-7600-2.

My Music, My War is a wonderful addition to the scholarship on military folklore that Lisa Gilman and others have pursued since Bruce Jackson’s 1989 JAF special issue (vol. 102, no. 406) on Vietnam, a war that received considerable resistance both at home and on the battlefield. Building on the work of such scholars as Lydia Fish and Carol Burke on Vietnam, Gilman has given us an even greater understanding of the importance of music among soldiers who compose, record, and share their music-listening preferences while overseas. Unlike previous work, however, this study covers a time when technology now allows soldiers to access expressive forms in almost limitless ways. Gilman’s approach in this ethnography is based on the notion of “situated listening,” examining troops’ musical practices of listening in order to shed light on the ways soldiers constitute their identities during war. ...

Gilman interviewed many active military personnel and veterans by phone, email, and Skype. Observing and interviewing soldiers between deployments to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, she focuses her study on “musical engagement” (p. x), which offers listeners a psychological escape while focusing on military duties. This could include those struggling to cope with their own identity as soldiers while seeking acceptance into the many folk groups within the military. Her study includes soldiers from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. The reader quickly realizes the power of music to move soldiers to action during combat, to reduce stress, and to express concerns, anxieties, fears, and loneliness while based far away from loved ones. Listening to music has the potential to transport at-risk soldiers from a combat zone to a different reality. Gilman is well aware of the power that music can have for listeners who are desperately seeking solace in the midst of chaotic environments or a way to decompress from traumatic experiences. ...

The musical preferences of the soldiers Gilman studied varied widely: from the patriotic lyrics of country and western, which underscore one’s duty to fight for one’s country, to the anti-establishment and even anti-American sentiments of punk rock and heavy metal. ... the large number serving who came from regions and cultures where country music is especially popular and the fact that, to these fans, it is the genre of patriotism (p. 90). The prevalence of hypermasculinity places tremendous pressure on male troops; a soldier whose listening habits favored “girly music” could risk ridicule, forcing the listener to hide his preferences. ...

Gilman’s analysis of the psychological functions of such expressive forms, both on the battlefield and at home, penetrates the world of those struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She explores how sufferers cope with their combat experiences through music. ...

Gilman’s book joins the growing scholarship on military folklore, bringing to readers a twenty-first-century view of life in recent combat zones involving American troops. She includes numerous song titles provided to her by her informants, which readers may download. Incorporating ethnographic data from a culturally diverse group of male and female soldiers, this fascinating and very readable study would be an excellent choice for anybody interested in the therapeutic uses of music, especially those currently working with veterans, as well as any course on American folk music or American folklore in general. This book is a testament to the hard work of a diligent folklorist who accomplished much in helping those veterans she interviewed, as well as those who are still struggling with PTSD.

Richard Allen Burns. Journal of American Folklore 131, 520 (2018), 223–225.