Whenever I heard the song “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen I always thought it was an upbeat and patriotic song. However, when we dissected the song in class, Springsteen sings about the troubles everyday Americans experienced in the 60s. In the second verse he sings, “Got in a little hometown jam/so they put a rifle in my hand/sent me off to a foreign land/to go and kill the yellow man.” What I believe Bruce is saying here that a lot of teenagers who didn’t have direction were just taught to sign up for the military and ended up hurting themselves even more either in the war or when they came back to the stated with PTSD. He later sings “Come Back home to the refinery/hiring man says ‘son of it was up to me”. Now the soldier is back in America but cannot find a job after serving his country. In the closing verse, Springsteen says “Down in the shadow of the penitentiary/out by the gas fires of the refinery.” The soldier now found himself in jail, like a lot of Vietnam vets. The chorus just repeats “Born in the USA” which I now believe is ironic because we sing it with such pride, but Springsteen is talking about the troubles of soldiers after they come back home, where they should be praised.