Rise Against - Hero Of War

After listening to it hundreds of times, I came to realize that, the "FLAG' he brought home, was not the one he said he loved at the beginning or the flag he trusted in the middle...

I want the whole world to hear that song and think about live in peace together... maybe i am to naive to wish a world without wars..! No race, animals or humans are made to kill each other...

As a Marine Corps veteran who joined during “peace time” so didn’t see active combat this song hits in a way too. I joined to travel, to fight, serve my country and I feel like I never did any of that. Like a fraud I get thanked for my service, that I’m still a hero for joining. But I don’t deserve it,

Listened to this song on repeat in Iraq and Afghanistan. It hit me so fucking hard. Now here in 2026. Just glad to be done with all of it.

Rest easy lance corporal kyle bushy. I miss you bud.

When I first played this song for my father he got very upset with me.
He had heard it before and was immediately dismissive of it, calling the singer a loser or a hack of some sort.

.. Perplexed by this, at the moment I understood maybe it was because of the hard effort he put into the Army that he felt this song was mocking him.

... Years and years later.. He confesses that during desert storm, him and a group of fellow soldiers had been ordered to gun down a young girl who was running to them.
.. I then saw why he did not like this song.

I cannot hate the man more than he hates himself for it.

A big irony is the way I discovered this song was when a friend posted "When a band gets political, I lose respect for them." I responded by saying that art is a form of free expression. He commented on there being music with all this emotion, but that's followed with songs "bashing Bush and our troops." He then mentioned this as the only song he know of that directly bashes our troops. He hasn't seen all the comments from veterans about this song.

I remember listening to this at the Marine School of Infantry. Thinking it was going to be the adventure of a lifetime. Getting back from my first deployment I realized that I would be anti war for the rest of my life, and the song took on an entirely new meaning to me.

My wife hates the idea of me telling our son that she was a hero. Absolutely detests it. I hear her reliving conversations and reconciling in her sleep. She wasn't infantry, she was aviation ordinance. She made bombs. A lot of bombs. For five years she made them. When she's awake, she'll talk about buddies she made, how much fun Thailand was, bouncing around the Pacific, and the hijinks. When she's asleep... she has ghosts, and those ghosts haunt her. Big one was shouting about a kill count to her service dog... it's the invisible scars that make war hell is what I gathered. I consider myself lucky having broken my leg and being deemed unfit for service. Kinda glad we found eachother, I'm there to help with her trauma and she helps me with mine

A masterful piece of pain. They train you how to kill. But they dont teach you how to live with yourself afterwards. I hate this world. Why cant we all just be kind to one another??

“I asked her to stop, I begged her to stay” gets me every time 😓

One of the best songs ever written. I get chills and tears every single time I hear it.

This is happening right now as we speak

i hope that the people who bombed that school never sleep soundly again, but i doubt it

Anyone here in 2026?

It's like we live in a loop... and somehow some are cheering for another waste of time, money and lives

Listening to this with the shit going on in mind, hits differently.

Greetz from Germany: I've heard the song on the radio before — most recently on Classic Rock Radio—and today I searched for the band and found this video. Strong & meaningful content. Thanks for this song.

It's scary how close we are to a world where this song is about a national Guardsman that has to confront an American citizen.

My close friend served 03-07, seen brutal things, got injured and sent home, he committed suicide a couple of years ago. He was one of the good guys, he absolutely deserved a long life. I miss him, and think of him often. Rest in peace Josh.

As my husband always says- there are no winners in war.

With everything going on this song is about to be very relevant again.

2025 and, unfortunately, more relevant than ever. 2025: Silence is complicity. Due process exists for good reason. Don't think it can't happen to you. 🖤✊🏼✊🏾✊🏻🖤


Don't let them take our boys to war in the Middle East again. Too many have died already... and for WHAT?!!

Its 2025 and we never learn our lessons. We are repeating the same mistake all over again.

Don't die for the elite. This song encapsulates the meaning of 15 years of listening to Rise Against and other punk/rock bands. We have more in common with the people they tell us to hate than those billionaires who tell us to hate those different from us #eattherich

Heard it 2009 as a kid becoming a teen.
I understood the lyrics but not the message or the real meaning behind it. I just thought soldiers were badasses and that PTSD is some kind of battle scar you bring home proudly.
Now I’m a grown man and see this song and especially the world very differently

who's listening to this song in 2024? 🙏😢☮

I’m almost 50 years old and I cry every time I hear this song. It’s beautiful and terrible at the same time.

I'm here after the death of srgt. Aaron Bushnell.🖤💔 May his voice will be heard and his memories shall live on.

Hearing this song now in 2023, and seeing the outcome of the middle east is truly heartbreaking

Ive commented on this video multiple times over 10 years. Its almost like my personal emotional account of how i am dealing with PTSD as my life progresses, and as i see the world progress. These men in Rise Against are better at connecting within the individual veteran more than our own comrades. They dont realize the impact this song has had on millions of us who struggle everyday. I don't even believe their intent was known how far it would go.

Thank you so much for writing this song. I understood it in 2009. I understand it even more in 2023.

Anyone still listening in 2023? Give me goose bumps every time a lot of meaning in this ❤

“She collapsed with a flag in her hands…a flag white as snow…” that verse always brings me to tears. 😭😢

11B, OIF 07-08, OEF 10-11. Fucking kills me every time I hear this. I can't make it through the whole song without losing it. One day, maybe. This captures the disillusionment in a way that can't be quantified. Fucking hell man. Lost too many brothers and sisters to this very disillusionment. We survived so much over there, just to lose it all at home years later. I wish I could thank these guys in person, for making a song that means so much to so many of us. And I really wish I could properly articulate just how much it mirrors the journey so perfectly; from the young naïve desire to see the world and be something bigger than yourself, all the way to the end of the journey that none of us ever expected to end the way it did-- tragedy ten years after the uniform was put on for the last time. From pride at signing up when we were attacked 20 years ago, to sitting at home disabled and discarded, crying to a youtube video. "Just medals and scars, so damn proud of me. I brought home that flag, now it gathers dust." Fuck dude. Fuck.

As a retired combat veteran this song hits where many painful memories reside, I have gone to introduce this song and amazing band to many of my ptsd groups, they all love it. Thank you Rise Against for this and all your music and talent

“I asked her to stop, I BEGGED her to stay”

The pure emotion that you can hear in that one line just rips my heart out. The entire song is pure genius.

It`s not a question of land, race, colour, religion. It`s a question of life, of freedom of peace. There isn`t anything more important to fight for than peace. Becouse it is EVERYONES right to live and grow in peace. Nor more war on europen ground.

Not many songs bring tears to my eyes. This is one of them.

God... Why do I always come back to this song at times like this? We are those who are not for or against any country or ideology, we only ask PEACE. ❤️

We all know why we are here <3

This song hits differently now. I hope every one is doing okay!

I'm a combat veteran and was sent this today because it reminded him of me. I hadn't heard or seen this video before and it made me tear up. It's been 15 yrs from the last deployment I was in and some of the things I did, was witness to and went through still haunt me to this day. Veteran's day is bitter sweet because I love our flag and our country but I'm ashamed of myself for things God can forgive. But I can't forgive myself.

Last time I saw Rise Against in concert, I was standing next to a group of soldiers in the pit. They cried through this entire song. They were wearing t-shirts that listed the names of the friends they had lost. I cry through this song every time I hear it and I think of those guys.

The recent news has brought me back here. A thoroughly depressing situation, and my thoughts are with everyone who sacrificed on the promises of those at the top.

The last chorus killed me. I graduated early to join. I chose the Navy on a last-second descision. I thought I fucked up by not going combat, until I saw what our politicians were really doing. We weren't fighting terror. We were playing a game that the elites demanded we play. They told us we were defending our families and home. When I realized that the same governments funded both sides of the war, I lost my shit. I was discharged with an OTH, I was put in a mental ward, and I was treated like a criminal by most people I knew, for seeing the truth and talking about it. Our servicemen are not monsters. They are good people that were lied to and lured into a war that doesn't exist. A war on ideology. The last verse kills me, because I knew good guys that had to make the hardest call any man can make, and because of these politicians and bankers, they had to choose between themselves and these children that were being used, just the same as the poor men that had to fire those shots. War is made by politicians, but they never fight. They enjoy the show, from afar. Sound like Rome, much?

I am a Marine, I've had two of my closest friends commit suicide whilst serving. This song hit home because one of them used to sing this song to me at bootcamp while wrighting letters to our loved ones. I'll never forget his voice, or this song

Even after 11 years this song still gives me chills EVERYTIME

I feel like this song is going to be much more relevant here soon

The realest song ever

As a former Marine and veteran of Iraq, the meaning was clear as bell to me. I love this song and it's much easier than awkwardly not knowing how to respond when people "thank me for fighting for their freedom". Inside I think, "if you only knew", but usually I shake their hand, smile and nod.