Unknown Soldier

The first thing you hear in this song is a helicopter. This is a reference to a war zone. It doesn't matter where you are in a war zone, whether on the very front lines, or the back lines as a support person: If you are in the American Military, you will hear a helicopter. This sets the scene and makes clear what the song is about.

The first word is Borderline. Now we are differentiating between a person who is support, way behind the front lines, vs. an actual combat arms type, whose entire existence is on the borderline between Friendly Lines and Enemy Lines. Support people can relate to aspects of this song, but its really about and for a direct action, front lines, combat arms person who has been there.

The entire first verse explains the psychological adaptation of a Warfighter in combat. If you don't numb yourself, and you allow yourself to feel for that little girl and her dog dead on the side of the road, you will be distracted and not notice the guy popping out with an RPG - and you will die. Numbing yourself is a survival mechanism, reducing yourself to primal levels of decision making, silencing the higher order thought processes of questioning things. You have to psyche yourself up, amp up, get ready for combat, the enemy is on the way.

This is not who you are. You are a human being that is capable of thought, questioning, pondering, etc. - but for now, you cannot be that. You must dislocate yourself from that, simplify things. This isn't optional. Your survival, and the survival of your brother's next to you depends on you doing this. "Count me in" - you better be ready to charge, close with and destroy the enemy, or you're all going to die.

While this is a perfectly normal and useful response to a war zone environment, prolonged exposure to this makes this your new "normal," and you will not be a person who is properly adapted to a "normal" life back home. This is what PTSD is, and it's called a "sickness," so, by doing this in a war zone in combat, you are "feeding the sickness."

The chorus makes me cry every time.

Black and white is the absence of color. In black and white, there is no difference between blood and dirt. In black and white, hes not bleeding all over the place, its just mud. In black and white, there is no constant, nagging self-doubt asking, "Am I really doing the right thing? Even though that kid turned out NOT to have a grenade when he charged us, was I still justified in shooting him to death because I didn't know?" In black and white, seeing your friend in a dream could be just a field training exercise and he is taking a nap after some dirty work.

In color, there is blood everywhere, and he is clearly not sleeping. In color, there is no denying the horror around you. Show me what it's like to dream in black and white so that, tonight, for just a little while, I can be somewhere that isn't altering the fabric of my being into something terrible.

Also, black and white refers to old pictures and TV that used to not have color. Its a desire to see the world the way you used to, before you adapted to a war zone.

The second verse I can see a couple ways, but for me, it is the problem of coming home. Physically, we are back. You can see us, we might get a job and go to work, say, "Hi" to you in the hallway. Everything looks good. But the song is called Unknown Soldier. You see us, and may take us at face value because we look normal. But we aren't. What we are is unknown and unknowable to you. Every soldier that has successfully adapted appropriately to a combat environment is unknowable to someone who hasn't. Whether they come home or not, to those who haven't been there, they are Unknown Soldiers.

A civilian is fine, in their sheltered civilian never-seen-anything-bad-in-your-life rainbows and sunshine world where the worst thing likely to happen this week is someone will spoil the recent Game of Thrones episode when they talk about it at work. For us, we got left behind, and you will never understand what that means. Our "normal" got changed and who we were is left dead on the battlefield. Whether we physically survive combat or not, mentally and emotionally, life becomes climbing out of that hole. Trying to change our "normal" back from one that we needed to survive the battle field to one that doesn't freak out when a car back fires. One that doesn't have panic attacks over rock piles on the side of a road. But you don't get it, so never mind. You'll be fine, while I was left behind.

The chorus then fits again - let me dream in black and white, which bleaches this horror out and lets me ignore the color. Let me dream in black and white, a memory of a time before I gained this perspective.

I appreciate that everyone can hear their own meaning in songs, and like when artists leave things open for you to fill in. For those advancing the BPD position, I am glad you hear something you can identify with. I have no experience with BPD and so am having a lot of difficulty hearing this in the same way you are. I also don't understand how a helicopter intro relates to BPD or suicide or anything other than a war zone, but that may just be a failing of my imagination.