Dress Blues

What can you see from your window?

I can't see anything from mine

Flags on the side of the highway

And scripture on grocery store signs

Maybe eighteen was too early

Maybe thirty or forty is too

Did you get your chance to make peace with the man

Before he sent down his angels for you?

Mamas and grandmamas love you

'Cause that's all they know how to do

You never planned on the bombs in the sand

Or sleeping in your dress blues

Your wife said this all would be funny

When you came back home in a week

You'd turn twenty-two and we'd celebrate you

In a bar or a tent by the creek

Your baby would just about be here

Your very last tour would be up

But you won't be back, they're all dressin' in black

Drinking sweet tea in styrofoam cups

Mamas and grandmamas love you

American boys hate to lose

You never planed on the bombs in the sand

Or sleepin' in your dress blues

Now the high school gymnasium's ready

Full of flowers and old legionnaires

Nobody showed up to protest

They just sniffle and stare

There's red, white, and blue in the rafters

And there's silent old men from the corps

What did they say when they shipped you away

To give all in some God awful war?

Nobody here could forget you

You showed us what we had to lose

You never planned on the bombs in the sand

Or sleeping in your dress blues

No, no you never planned on the bombs in the sand

Or sleeping in your dress blues