For Honor and For Country

[good4somethingbum]

For Honor and For Country ©2014 Robert George BMI

Tommy only had three classes on his senior year
Then he’d cruise around and plan his working class career
Was it gonna be an aching back and blistered hands
Like his granpa and his father at the auto plant
And he’d drive by Chevrons, Burger Kings and muffler shops
Maybe he could be a night cook at the new IHOP

Then he passed a giant billboard
On the potholed highway by a hollow birch tree
He saw men with dress blues and swords
And below it read “for honor and for country”

Five years later he sat in a VA waiting room
No one called his name although he’d stayed all afternoon
O his nightmares became like shrapnel in his sleep
Just like IEDs ripped through the bottom of his jeep
He’d been comin’ there for weeks now hopin’ for some help
But he left at sundown and he drove home by himself

And he passed a giant billboard
on the potholed highway by a hollow birch tree
he saw men with dress blues and swords
and below it read "for honor and for country"

Tommy’s father found him sitting lifeless in the dark
By a whiskey jug, a pistol and a purple heart
Sunday mornin’ he drove back from Cemetery Hill
It was August but the south wind bore a lonely chill
Tommy’s father pulled off in a clearing on the right
Then he laid his forehead on the steering wheel and cried

And he’d parked beside a billboard
On the potholed highway by a hollow birch tree
He saw men with dress blues and swords
And below it read “for honor and for country”