Erik Lunde’s “Steel Militia” Wrestles with the Painful Legacy of the Afghanistan War

Erik Lunde releases the single “Steel Militia” on August 27th in the shadow of America’s disquieting exit from Afghanistan, 20 years after the events of 9/11 led to “America’s Longest War.” As a self-described “Tolstoyan Christian Pacifist” who tries to live by the principles of non-violence laid out in the “Sermon On The Mount,” Lunde wrote the lyrics to “Steel Militia”’ from his despair over the tragic American military response to 9/11 after reading the devastating true story of the Wise Brothers in a Washington Post article entitled “One Family, Two Sacrifices.” The article told the story of the passions and motivations of two patriotic brothers from Arkansas who both enlisted and were killed in the war in Afghanistan. Written in the narrative storytelling vein of classic America...

unsplash-logoLilith Redmoon