Please don’t tell me “Thank you for your service” when you don’t know what it means.
Yes I served, but I am ashamed of me.

They send us to die for the simplest of reasons
We sign over control, and they tell us the seasons.

When we pass in a pillar of confusion
They erect a pillar of stone,
and never lift another finger at all to atone.

“Cos we’re men. We don’t sin.
We said we’re right and we’ll make you fight,
or we’ll take it ’til we win.”

I stand before the mighty wall that they erected,
knowing my ancestors names were removed or rejected.

“But we did it for our country, to protect it!”
…the parts they like and parts they can see,
but never the parts they leave for you and me.

Gun smoke
Hand-grenades
One false step and you’re history
A bag of blood wins you victory,
but what are we really winning?

I am looking at this polished stone and I don’t see a happy ending.
What I see is a wall of regret
for all the lives stolen, so young and so beautiful
“Good, strong men, brave, and dutiful.”

Do we ever get a chance to take it all back?
What is everyone celebrating for?
This isn’t a film with hero’s and magic.
There’s bodies in there!
This loss is massive and tragic.

Those who survive it know that it’s whack
That governments rise on dead men’s backs.
They leave us in for the dust and the trenches
while viewing from far away benches.

They play strategy games with human lives
that draw lines of hate and division
simply to satisfy their solitary greed-driven visions.

So yes, I say it’s a beautiful rock, and the garden has grown jolly.
Cos all I see here is an oversight of folly, decorated in holly.
Crying families, separated.
Loving connections, gone and faded.

…and all you do is pat us on the back and lip-pay them,
even when we’re missing limbs that got blown off to save your flag’s hem.