Line the Avenues

The sound of reveille wakes him out of bed

All the training in the world won't shake off the impending dread

The old fan on the ceiling

Does nothing to fight the heat

And the sweat rolls down their faces

As they're given the morning brief

He thinks back to 41 when he scratched the dotted line

Had the world lost its mind

It was the right thing at the time

You'll be a hero son, you'll make the headline news

When they declare we've won, they'll line the avenues

She pulls back on the stick for the 7th time today

The way the wind whips up a sandstorm

Remind her of a hurricane

She counts six men in the cabin

She doesn't know their names

But she knows that if they make It home

They'll never be the same

She thinks back to 91 when she signed the dotted line

Had the world lost its mind

It was the right thing at the time

You'll be a hero Ma'am, you'll make the headline news

This one ain't Viet Nam

They'll line the avenues

He woke me up early the day that I turned ten

There's something I want to show you

If not now then I'm not sure when

An old book sat on the table, his photos from the war

And I listened as he shared what

He'd been told he was fighting for

You'll be a hero son, you'll make the headline news

When they declare we've won, they'll line the avenues

And I think back to that day sitting in the morning light

Hearing my father's father's plight, of men lost in the flght

So I see things different now

When I read the headline news

Every time they say we've won

I wonder what we lose