Why Are You Marching Son

I'd really like to know

Because of Valley Forge or perhaps the Alamo

Or One if by land two if by sea

A trumpet's callthe will to be free

What of a man who stood straight and tall

Who wept silent tears when he saw brave men fall

No matter no difference the blue or the gray

All were his brother

Show often he'd pray

And what of Antietam that now peaceful stream

Where the water blood-red glittered and gleamed

Appomattox Chickamauga Vicksburg Bull Run

Cumberland Gettys burgand then Washington

Why Are You Marching Son

In Flanders Fields how proud were they

Whose forms beneath the poppies lay

Men who saw Verdun

And died at the Marne Soissons

And those who tried the fearful foe at Chateau-Thierry

Who fought and bled whose hearts grew weary

But in whose minds one thought kept churning

That the torch of liberty keep burning

Why Are You Marching Son

The planes swarmed in and the rising sun

Glowed fiercely on the evil done

To men whose blood runs through our veins

Men who died and whose remains

Life forever locked in waters deep

Now is it right that they should sleep

While the warm sea laps at a twisted hull

See the torch of liberty grow dull

Anzio Cassinoand the Po

St Mere EgliseLe Mans St Lo

Gardelegen Buchenwald

On and on the roll is called

And why

Why Are You Marching Son

Bugles shrilled in the frozen night

And at first dawn the awful sight

Of seas of menrow after row

Left to die on blood-stained snow

Pusan Pyongyang Suwan Kyongju

And blood-red ran the swift Yalu

In South Vietnam the big guns roared

And once again we fought a war

To honor a pledge our nation gave

To help that little country save

Her people from the certainty

That she'd be ruled by tyranny

No matter where the big guns roar

Our fighting men like those before

Take the torch we all hold dear

And face freedom's enemies without fear

Our fathers died from sea to sea

And blessed the torch of liberty

Why Why Are You Marching Son