Golden apples, crisp sandwiches, and smiling milk
Golden boy, growing hands, and smiling eyes
Easy to learn those lessons woven by a voice of silk
Easy to yearn with countless ways to fly on free skies

Silver tongue to gild her hope in their enticing game
Silver lost on nickel and dime since the value change
Tough to beat that cowboy has wound up all the true dames
Tough to see success outside that boy's jubilant range

Copperhead and improperly read, now he is out on the town
Copper tools to trade between fools for a means through today
Hard to make it now that his future is a thought that brings him down
Hard landing and hard to stand knowing soldiers get to fly away

Muscle-cut, silent disciple by uniform and drill
On a new path where the steps are already named

Earning inertia and purpose as his hands fill
By the rifle, by his life, now he can cut through the future

Winning trust and won his chance at enemies to ****
Now they are dead.

Oh glory, oh honor, our hero returns home with tempered will
The war is over, he held his weight, yet from that rigid world he must depart

He cannot remember how the old rhyme went
He cannot tell if his time was well spent
Weary from angels shattered and morals hell bent
Wary for how neighbors treat what is different
Witness to blindness for what is done, and what is meant
Advertised pride for racist media and murderous government
Now his last hope is a child with lustrous intent
To ask,
"Sir, where do all the old soldiers come from,
     and where have they been since?"