Remember when we were kids while the men built the world around us

Soft dirt piles that stretched for miles

We’d have dirtball fights, tossing clay across the fields

Until our parents yelled and bayed

Saying soon, an eye will be taken out by one of y’all

We were having our own replicated war

Safely found within the boundaries of friendship

Nobody wanted to kill one another that day

‘Cept for the occasional well aimed rock hidden in clay

We always got past that though, knowing we were kids

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Remember when we were kids and the letters started to arrive

Our brothers were going away dressed well in uniforms

Back then we listened to the news to hear whether they were dead

Having sacrificed their lives for what my mommy called

Harvesting the fields for somebody else’s cotton

What do we want with somebody else’s cotton I remember asking

She just showed me tears and walked into the other room

I grew up watching the names scroll across the evening news

Thinking these names were representing heroes

Not realizing one day I would forget to understand their sacrifice

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Remember when we applauded the gladiators of the football field

Dressed in colors and heavy duty armor ready to pillage the line

We grew up watching these teams of defenders and animal pillages

Totally blind to the driven massacres that occurred across the seas

We took on new parts of our lives when we realized the truth

The war across the bay was real, these guys on a field were a play

Yet who were the heroes now we began to cry out loud

Pine boxes and metal tags, missing limbs and lost minds

The war today is no more blind to the pain then yesterday

We still lose lives that held brother’s and sister’s hands

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Mothers still cry, and fathers still try to hold up their heads

To recognize the sacrifice that no-one truly ever understands