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Detroit to D.C. night train |
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Capitol, parts East |
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Lone young man takes a seat |
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And by the rhythm of the rails |
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Reading all his mother's mail |
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From a city boy in a jungle town |
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Postmarked Saigon |
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He'll go live his mother's dream |
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Join the slowest parade he'll ever see |
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Her weight of sorrows carried long and carried far |
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Take these Tommy to the wall |
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Metro line to the Mall site with a tour of Japanese |
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He's wandering and lost until a vet in worn fatigues |
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Takes him down to where they belong |
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Near a soldier, an ex-Marine |
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With a tattooed dagger and eagle trembling |
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He bites his lip beside a widow breaking down |
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She takes her Purple Heart |
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Makes a fist, strikes the wall |
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All come to live a dream |
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To join the slowest parade they'll ever see |
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Their weight of sorrows carried long and carried far |
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Taken to the wall |
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It's 40 paces to the year that he was slain |
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His hand's slipping down the wall for it's slick with rain |
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How would life have ever been the same |
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If this wall had carved in it one less name? |
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But for Christ's sake, he's been dead over 20 years |
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He leaves the letters asking |
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Who caused my mother's tears |
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Was it Washington or the Viet Cong? |
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Slow deliberate steps are involved |
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He takes them away from the black granite wall |
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Toward the other monuments so white and clean |
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Potomac, what you've seen |
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Abraham had his war too, but an honest war |
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Or so it's taught in school |
