ERIC: Let me ask a couple of questions in reference to what you just said. A majority of people believe, if you put together anything that is anti-war, anti-president, then you are anti-troops and military. Is that true Dan? Please speak to family, friends and the patriotic concerns that say, if you put "Hero43" on an album you are actually being anti-troops.

DAN: See, I don't believe that. I'm very much in favor of the troops. These are guys who are following orders, so they are doing their job for their country and there's a system that breaks down if the troops start going, "I don't believe that, so I'm not going to do it." I believe that there are a lot of people in Iraq, our soldiers, that firmly believe they're there for a reason. We don't hear about those reasons. Our media is so screwed up that we don't really hear the truth about what is really going on. We are left to kind of piece it together on our own, from all of this - this influx of the mass media.

The soldiers are the one's that probably get the short end of the stick, because we don't really hear from them. We don't really hear what is going on. What are the good things about this season of trying to liberate Iraq? And, what are the bad things? What is really going on why they are there? At least for me, I find it very difficult to wade through all of the information that is thrown at me about the war, and everyone's opinion.

What I do believe, is that there is a lot of infighting in politics right now. It feels like there is a lot of justification for things that we shouldn't had been a part of. (It seems like we are) now we're trying to save face, when perhaps a better tactic would be to come clean. To say, "you're right, we were wrong in doing this". Maybe we should try to approach this a different way.

It doesn't feel any different than listening to a pastor who has been caught (in sinful error). Everything that happened with Haggard his situation was everyone kind of knew what was going on. And he knew what was going on. Still he said no, (it is not happening). Everybody knew it was true. Seems the same for our government. Everybody kind of knows, for the most part, that we were wrong to go in there, and we really need to clean it up. The reasons we went were not the real reasons that we are actually there.

I'm thoughtfully concerned about the way we are approaching the rest of the world. I'm also very aware that this war is taking up a great deal of our attention. There are other things going on in our world that we should very well be involved. Whether that's dealing with  HIV/AIDS in Africa, or poverty that is going on in all of these developing nations. You know, we are allotting a lot of finances and a lot of attention in trying to clean up a mess. Or, we are trying to cover up a mess versus actually doing some of these good things that we should be doing in the world.

ERIC: You say in the article that there is a facade. That artists and musicians, those inside of Contemporary Christan Music, are not permitted to talk about the real stuff that is going on...the real authentic struggles of live and faith. Are Christian Band's forced to be insincere because of this 'facade'?