ONE DAY AT THE FRONT
I heard the roar of an airplane
Diving for the kill,
Heard the chatter of its guns,
Saw men dying on the hill.
Heard the crash and thunder,
Saw the flash of the heavy guns,
Heard the rumble of the tanks,
For the battle's just begun.
I heard the scream and boom of shells
Tearing up the sod,
Heard the voice of a G.I.
As he softly prays to GOD.
I heard the cry of a wounded soldier
On a hillside swept with snow,
Saw the hurrying forms of medics
Taking the wounded down below.
Heard the whine of a glancing bullet
Screaming toward the sky,
Heard the thud of another,
See a G.I. fall and die.
Heard the whistle of a large shell,
See the foxhole where it hits.
Heard the boom of it's explosion
As it blows a man to bits
I hear the order being given
For the men to take a hill,
See them meet a wall of hot lead,
See some fall and lie still,
After many bloody hours,
And the loss of a hundred men,
They have taken the objective,
To be driven back again;
Leaving more good men dying
On the hillside as before.
I hear the order being given
To retake the hill once more.
Another village we have taken,
But on the outskirts of this town,
In a ditch we saw some G.I.s,
Where the reds had shot them down,
Their hands tied behind their backs,
Tied with barbed wire so tight,
There was blood o'er everything;
I will ne'er forget that sight.
Men are fighting and are dying
On the battlefields of war,
Pray for them, my fellow townsmen,
Even if you do no more.