Citizen Soldier Remix

When I first heard the song "Citizen Soldier" by 3 Doors Down, I was in a corporate movie theatre watching the commercials before a movie. A National Guard commercial came on featuring this song as the audio and re-enactments of National Guard moments throughout history as the video, from the Revolutionary War to World War II to the aftermath of Katrina and the war in Iraq.

As soon as I saw this commercial and heard this song, I knew that I had to come up with a creative and critical response. I was already familiar with the band, and the song was so catchy and compelling that I found it sticking in my head for days afterwards. But I simply couldn't stand the thought of all of those young people watching this video and deciding that the National Guard was their best path towards a life of honor and heroism and service of country and all of that nonsense.

It quickly occurred to me that the lyrics of the song were open to reinterpretation, and that I could make a video response presenting activists, community organizers, anarchists, revolutionaries, etc. as a different type of "Citizen Soldier." After a series of delays and distractions, I finally came back to this project and created a video called Citizen Soldier Remix.

Code to embed this video in MySpace bulletins, emails, websites, etc.: