Metallica — “Disposable Heroes” from Master of Puppets (1986, Elektra)
“I was a coward. I went to the war.” So laments the narrator of Tim O’Brien’s semi-autobiographical short story collection/novel The Things They Carried (1990 Houghton Mifflin).
I suppose it’s unlikely, but I like to imagine O’Brien blasting “Disposable Heroes” while writing that line. It is, after all, a song about the horrors of war that includes the lines “you coward / you servant / you blind man / back to the front.” Anyway, it’s not impossible. The timeline checks out.
Speaking of timelines, I’ve often thought about how it’s a sort of luxury to be vocally anti-war when one lives in a time and place wherein they are extremely unlikely to be pressed into combat. James Hetfield, for example, was 23 in 1986. I suppose he was of age during the multinational intervention in Lebanon, for example, or the US invasion of Grenada, or the bombing of Libya, but none of those involved the draft.
When I was eighteen my dad took me to the post office under some mild protest so that I could register for selective service. “Don’t worry,” he explained. “If there’s ever a draft I’m going to take you to Canada.” This meant a lot to me at the time, though neither of us yet knew how it echoed O’Brien’s work.
As I understand it, my dad and his friend received their draft notices around Thanksgiving of 1965, and immediately high-tailed it down to the nearest National Guard, uh, place, because in those days you could join the guard after having been drafted and you had like a 99% chance of not seeing combat. The US government, as you might imagine, later closed that loophole, but, as I imagine, it kept my old man, and subsequently me, alive.
I’m glad he took the courageous route.
One more digression and then I swear I’ll bring it back to Hetfield and them: when I was the age my dad was when he got drafted I was working for the Salvation Army (an organization whose homophobia had not yet been made clear to me) delivering bag lunches, etc. to unhoused people camped out around Minneapolis. There were far fewer camps in those days, and nothing that could really be called an “encampment,” something that distinguishes that period of time from today, but we had a route and a schedule and, eventually, friends that counted on seeing us each day.
One such gentleman was a guy named Charlie who got really drunk on rye whiskey one day and started telling me all about the war, including showing me where he had been wounded. It wasn’t lost on me (and I think Charlie even mentioned it), that this had happened when he was roughly the age I was upon hearing his story. I later wrote a poem about that experience that included a line I’m still proud of: “I wonder if Charlie chose a different name / to go by in the jungle.”
So, to bring it back: Charlie, my dad, his friend Steve — war knocked on their door, its icy breath on the back of their necks, if you’ll allow the floridity. Hetfield and I are just some goofs who were never asked to risk anything. Don’t get me wrong, I’m staunchly anti-war, but I’m also aware of the luxury of my position.
And you know what’s a luxurious position? Being in the Big 4 of American thrash bands. And Metallica want you to know that they know they belong there with the intro to “Disposable Heroes.”
Another digression: I’m halfway through Some Kind of Monster, and I still can’t for the life of me make up my mind about what I think about Lars’ drumming. It’s the sonic equivalent of that internet dress — is it black and blue? Gold and white? Is he competent? A mess? I’ll never know. At least the internet had the decency to clarify, eventually, that the dress was black and white.
Speaking of things I’m only partway done with (excluding this post, although I suppose that’s true, too), I still haven’t finished Stranger Things, though I understand that there’s a song from Master of Puppets in the final season. I knew this when the characters were scrambling to find a favorite tape to put in what’s-her-name’s walkman to keep her safe from Vecna’s curse. I thought for all the world that I was about to be treated to some thrash. Instead? Kate Bush. I wasn’t mad.
But this is peak Metallica. Fast and shreddy. Noodly solos. Melody, harmony, and, in case you didn’t catch on to the theme, reasonably thoughtful lyrics that are critical of war and militarism, something I think gets lost in a lot of conversations that look back on thrash metal (or MLK, for that matter, though that’s not really our topic today).
As I understand it, many Metallica fans fell off after this album. For my part, I was eight in 1986, and so didn’t jump on the Metallica bandwagon until 1988 when my sister’s (late) metalhead boyfriend introduced me to, among other things, …And Justice for All. And I know that’s a whole other Lars conversation, but still, in my view, that’s the last good Metallica album. But also, it doesn’t matter what I think. Please enjoy.
The Shuffler 