Iraq and Roll

The basement is now the command center, where Lucid Dissent gets together to play a couple of times a week. The music, a dark combination of moody, grinding rock and hip-hop, gets tighter with each session.

"It was utter chaos when we started," Dave says. "We didn't really know what we were doing. We got all these books in the beginning, like, 'How to Make it in the Music Business.' We learned to write this stuff in the middle of the desert. Since then I think we've figured out how to improve the songs. We're better writers now. We practice a lot."

Tonight they're fine-tuning "Through It All," a song Dave started writing at West Point and finished in Iraq. It's a strummy pop tune, brighter than a lot of the material Lucid Dissent brought back from Iraq. Dave and Lu sing the alternating harmonies of its chorus; at times their voices are nearly indistinguishable:

You took my side when you knew I was wrong
Fought my fights when we shouldn't have won
On roads untraveled, outside these lines
We stood through it all.

"A lot of the early songs were spawned by the frustration of being in the desert, of getting constantly beat down," Geoff says. "There were a lot of emotions that we had over there, and the songs were one of the only outlets for them."

"Now that we're back, we're writing happier stuff, different stuff," Lu adds, laughing. "We've got a love song, a heartbreak song. Now, that's uncharted territory."

Around 11 o'clock, the guys take a break for beer. Lu takes a pull on his bottle and points it at Chris:

"Do you know," he asks, his eyebrow raised, "about tomorrow?"

Lu and Chris are both due to take an Army physical-fitness test in the morning. Before the sun fully rises on Colorado Springs, they'll run miles, do hundreds of sit-ups and push-ups in the snow.

"God, am I glad I don't have to do that anymore," Geoff says.

Geoff left the Army a couple of months after he got back from Iraq, having completed the five-year obligation that came with his West Point education. He traveled for a while and then took a job as a construction manager for Pulte Homes last month.

"When I was thinking of leaving, I sought the advice of a lot of people who had made a career out of the Army, and many of them told me that I needed to stay," he continues. "And I was proud to have served, but my five years were up, and I realized that this is not where I wanted to be for the next twenty years. I think it's much easier to leave after five years than waiting eight or nine; by that point, you might figure, 'I'm halfway to my pension. I might as well stay.'

"What I do now is actually a lot like what I did in the S4," he says, "but it's a heck of a lot easier."

The other guys are getting ready to leave the service, too. They each decided not to renew their commissions with the Department of the Army when they expire this summer. The war wasn't quite what they bargained for. They want to do more normal things, like get non-military jobs, wear regular clothes and try to make a go of the band.

"You get to a point where you have to ask yourself, 'What's the next step after the Army?'" says Dave. "Most folks get out and go ten different ways, away from each other. We don't want to do that. Someday we all want to live on the same street with our wives, and our kids can come over and play. We saw the band as a way to have that camaraderie outside of the Army.

"When someone asks you, 'What do you want to do with your life?' and you say, 'I want to be in a rock band,' that's something that transcends to everyone," he continues. "Our goal isn't to get rich and famous, but to have a way to stay together."

When other officers found out that they were leaving the Army to play in a band, they laughed a little before realizing that the friends were completely serious.

"We'd play our music for them, blast it in their offices," Chris says. "The word spread through the chain of command. At first some of the senior officers were kind of like, 'Um, you're doing what, now? A band? What are you two clowns doing?' People had a hard time understanding."

Similarly, they expect some people on the other side won't understand what the hell four Army dudes are doing with guitars -- especially right now. The music industry isn't exactly rife with pro-Army sentiment. But Lucid Dissent won't try to hide its military roots. All proceeds from the sale of GetAfterIt will go to charities that support soldiers and their families. (The recording is available through www.luciddissent.com.) The band's T-shirt is embossed with a "Support Our Troops" logo. The guys plan to send copies of the CD to members of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is getting ready to redeploy to Iraq this spring.