South Hill

When my girl got pregnant well I dropped right out of school

But there's no work in South Hill so what else could I do?

The recruiter's came-a-knocking when this whole damn thing began

They promised me a college education food and medicine

They said I wouldn't spend a dime if I got deployed overseas

Plus Baghdad is safer now than old Washington, DC

So I signed that dotted line right quick and in a blink of an eye

I found myself at Fort Benning where I practiced forming lines

Well Fallujah became my home, my comfort and my dread

The marines that came through first man they tore this place to shreds

With the sound of crushing Amtracs and the whine of their Humvee's

Calling in them A-10 air strikes man I wish I could have seen it

But when we got to town I realized we were only legs

We do dismounted patrols we do searches and do raids

We hear the crack of small arms fire and the blast from IED's

We hurry up and wait, suck in dust and stay low key

And I cannot stop this pounding in my head

I thought we were doing right but that's not what folks back home have said

Sometimes I can't tell which way is up or which is down

But I'm oddly at ease with this chaos all around

Then one day out on patrol doing time out in the heat

We were ordered to a neighborhood to talk to folks out on the street

To gather information on where some weapons may be stored

Or to see if the Mujahideen had hauled them off out of Fallujah and to the north

Well my platoon got lost and made more then one wrong turn

We should have called in our position fast but we blamed each other first

Then we started taking sniper fire - god damn them all

We couldn't find the shooter no where he had us pinned down one and all

Well friendies they caught up and we took back that god damned street

But something wasn't right and I was feeling really weak

My adrenaline was high and I was scared and I could hardly breathe

I heard doc argue with the Sarg that morphine might kill me

That's the last thing I remember that and heat and clear blue sky

And thinking about my girl back home and my daughters little eyes

I took that bullet in Fallujah and I'm laid up in Germany

And I'm headed back stateside to the care of Walter Reed

And I cannot feel a thing below my waist

Doc tried to help me man but it was too late

Now I don't know who is right or who is wrong

But I'm fucked up and I want to go back home

And I cannot stop this pounding in my head

I thought we were doing right but that's not what folks back home have said

Now I don't know which way is up or which is down

But one day I'll stand firmly on the ground

Yes one day I'll stand firmly on the ground