Home Uninjured

Just another day outside of Baghdad

I was assigned to the raid

I was a 22-year-old Sergeant

With a wife and two kids back in the States

Everything had gone as well as it could

No one had shot at us, no one had run

I was questioning a woman in the courtyard

When I heard the sound of a machine gun

I dreamed of the mountains

I dreamed of sleeping through the night

I dreamed of getting home uninjured

To the stars of my own sky

The soldier who had fired

Pointed at a black pick-up truck

He said, "I saw a man in the back there

With an AK-47 aimed at us"

So me and him and two other guys

Ran up to check it out

And when my buddy saw what he had done,

"MEDIC, MEDIC," was all he could shout

He dreamed of the mountains

He dreamed of sleeping through the night

He dreamed of getting home uninjured

To the stars of his own sky

I was there to translate

So I listened, I understood

These men were carpenters

The supposed AK-47 was a piece of wood

Four Iraqi men were crying

Repeating, repeating, "Why? Why?"

And in their arms they carried a limp and twisted child

He was a boy about three years old

With a bullet hole in his head

And the white shirts of his fathers

Were quickly turning red

He dreamed of the mountains

He dreamed of sleeping through the night

He dreamed of getting home uninjured

Under the stars of his own sky