The Meaning of Metallica by William Irwin

Author:William Irwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2022-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

War

The Bell Tolls for One Disposable Hero

One” from the album . . . And Justice for All envisions the terrible scenario in which a soldier has been badly disabled by battle: “Landmine has taken my sight / Taken my speech / Taken my hearing / Taken my arms / Taken my legs / Taken my soul / Left me with life in hell.” Unable to see, hear, or speak, the decerebrated soldier appears to be in a persistent vegetative state. With help, his heart beats and his lungs breathe, but his brain does not think—or so it is wrongly presumed. The soldier is actually fully conscious but deprived of all sensory input; his own thoughts are all the company he has. As the soldier describes it, “Now the world is gone, I’m just one.” It is the ultimate form of solitary confinement, a torture we would not wish on our worst enemies. The soldier has difficulty telling if he is awake or asleep: “Can’t tell if this is true or dream.” Considering the terrible circumstances of his waking life, dreams must be desirable. Perhaps he dreams that his body is fully functioning. In his dreams he can see, hear, speak, and move. To wake from his dreams is to find himself in the recurrent nightmare of reality: “Back in the womb it’s much too real / In pumps life that I must feel.” Horrified, he would like to cry out, but he cannot. “Deep down inside I feel to scream / This terrible silence stops me.” A scream can free us from a nightmare by waking us, but no such escape is there for the soldier. He is unable to scream, unable to change his state.

Influenced by Venom’s “Buried Alive,” the song begins with moody, atmospheric sounds. For the first line of the song, Hetfield laments, “I can’t remember anything.” Amnesia is a common result of traumatic injuries, but gradually the soldier reconstructs his memories and realizes his situation. As he describes it, “Fed through the tube that sticks in me / Just like a wartime novelty / Tied to machines that make me be.” He is an oddity, something that should not be, a freak kept alive by machines. There is no real value in being this kind of “wartime novelty.” He is not like a returning soldier with a missing limb and an inspiring story. Instead, he is a useless remnant, discarded to a dark room where “Now that the war is through with me / I’m waking up, I cannot see / That there is not much left of me / Nothing is real but pain now.”

The pain is what others fail to perceive. From their perspective he appears unable to think and unable to feel pain. His sincere wish is that the medical personnel would “cut this life off from me.” Hamlet’s question gives him no pause. If only they would disconnect the tubes, he could cease to be. Alas, his own efforts are fruitless. “Hold my breath as I wish for death,” but he knows that won’t work.

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