Singable: “You gotta fight to stay independent / I got my pride and I’m gonna defend it.” (“High-Risk Insurance,” 1980)

3 Doors Down: The Mississippi-bred Top-40 band best known for their 2000 hit “Kryptonite” recently worked with the National Guard to create a 3-minute commercial to be shown before movie screenings. They lent their songwriting talent to the armed forces with the single, “Citizen Soldier.”

Quotable: “Stop and Pray for a soldier today…Never forget that we live in the land of the free because of the brave,” said lead singer Brad Arnold.

Singable: “Citizen soldiers / Holding the light for the ones that we guide from the dark of despair / Standing on guard for the ones that we’ve sheltered / We’ll always be ready because we will always be there.” (“Citizen Soldier,” 2007)

Drowning Pool: After several USO performances in Iraq and Afghanistan, the members of this hard-rock band were inspired to come back home, tour to raise money for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and the USO, and lobby for greater funding and awareness for mental health care among returning soldiers. They’re Obama-supporters in the presidential race, but their aggressive troop-support deserves kudos.

Quote: “You get to know the troops face-to-face, hear their stories, you can’t help but come home changed by that. We want to send a challenge out there to entertainers in all fields to step up, go over and take a piece of home with you to the troops that are over there,” said lead singer Ryan McCombs.

Singable: “Every time I see inside you I see myself within you / Let’s go. / This is for the soldiers…/ All for one.” (“Soldiers,” 2007)

They’re not all conservative, but they’re pro-life, overtly religious,

unabashedly patriotic, and—gasp!—popular, despite living differently in a sea of interchangeable non-conformists. In an industry where allusions to love of God, family and country often come with caveats, these guys are refreshingly—

what’s the word?—anti-establishment.

This article is from the March issue for Townhall Magazine.  To subscribe to twelve issues of Townhall Magazine and receive a free copy of Andrew McCarthy’s Willful Blindness:  A Memoir of a Jihad, click here.