16 years old
when I went to war,
To fight for a land fit for heroes,
God on my side,
and a gun in my hand,
Chasing my days down to zero,
And I marched and I fought
and I bled and I died,
And I never did get any older,
But I knew at the time
that a year in the line,
Is a long enough life for a soldier,
We all volunteered,
and we wrote down our names,
And we added two years to our ages,
Eager for life
and ahead of the game,
Ready for history's pages,
And we brawled and we fought
and we whored 'til we stood,
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder,
A thirst for the Hun,
we were food for the gun,
And that's what you are when you're soldiers,
I heard my friend cry,
and he sank to his knees,
Coughing blood as he screamed for his mother,
And I fell by his side,
and that's how we died,
Clinging like kids to each other,
And I lay in the mud
and the guts and the blood,
And I wept as his body grew colder,
And I called for my mother
and she never came,
Though it wasn't my fault
and I wasn't to blame,
The day not half over
and ten thousand slain,
And now there's nobody
remembers our names,
And that's how it is for a soldier.