So, our theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week is to post a song about the military.
This week HELEN VAHDATI of This life one word at a time has set us a hard task, well to my mind anyway. I was going to pick more than one. Then I thought No the Universal Soldier is not only the Soldier but also the Sailor , the Marine and the Airman he is all of them and all of us.
Here we go , well for my choice I am going back to my youth and a song from Donovan The Universal Soldier the song was written by Buffy Sainte- Marie I first heard the song in 1964,my first protest song!
“Universal Soldier” written by Buffy Sainte – Marie
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He’s all of thirty-one, and he’s only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.
He’a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn’t kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.
And he’s fighting for Canada,
He’s fighting for France,
He’s fighting for the USA,
And he’s fighting for the Russians,
And he’s fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we’ll put an end to war this way.
And he’s fighting for Democracy,
He’s fighting for the Reds,
He says it’s for the peace of all.
He’s the one who must decide,
Who’s to live and who’s to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned them at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He’s the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can’t go on.
He’s the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can’t you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.
