Well Johnny came from Denver
And Mickey came from Maine
And I came from Long Island
Where we all met on the train.
While the train travelled eastward
To the war ships by Chesapeake Bay
Mickey took out a deck of cards
And asked if we would play.
We spent most of our time together
As we prepared to go to war
It turned out that Johnny was a singer
While Mickey sold door to door.
We spent most of our off nights talkin’
About our families and our friends
And how we loved our ladies
Who we all expected to see again.
Mickey loved a girl named Genie
Who he’d been with for three years
And Johnny told us of a girl named Julie
While we hung out drinking beers.
I told them about my father
And about my mother and sister too
But told them I didn’t have a girlfriend
Although I’d once kissed a girl named Sue.
After weeks of basic training
With our bodies bruised and sore
They told us that we were ready
And they sent us off to war.
It was on June 6 of 1944
When we landed at Omaha Beach
When they dropped the front of the landing craft
You could hear the bullets screech.
Someone dropped beside me
And another one just behind
So I rushed out of that landing craft
With dying on my mind.
Mickey & Johnny ran with me
As the bombs and bullets flew on by
But when good men died all around us
We had no time to cry.
All three of us jumped in a hole
That had been made there by a tank
Then we slowly crawled out of that hole
To find someone of higher rank.
Soon we found our sergeant
Who told us what to do
He told us to attack a ridge
And fight our way on through.
Before we did we stopped and said
A prayer that we’d all survive
That God would wrap us in his love
And bring us home alive.
Then we sprung up out of that hole
And we ran as low as we could
Cause to take a bullet in the head
Couldn’t be that good.
Then the world around us changed
As we heard the sirens blare
And a bomb blew up between us
As fragments flew into the air.
I heard the screams behind me
And so I turned around
To see Johnny’s mangled body fall
Upon the sodden ground.
Then I heard an enemy bullet
Fly right past my hurting head
I heard Mickey make an awful sound
And turned to find him dead.
I now found myself all alone
On that dark and evil day
And then I felt the bullet hit
As it blew my head away.
They sent my broken body home
And buried me inside a tomb
And wrapped me in our glorious flag
As if it were my mother’s womb.
When they sent us off to war
We did everything we were told
I just hope that you who follow know
If was for your freedom our lives were sold.
©ronvdm777
Nov 2019
©ronvdm777
R