Guns and lilies on fields of honor
grow where souls of men collide,
when duty and honor call the charge
and courage marks their stride.
It is against the hideous plans
of dangerously powerful men
that our good and brave go forth
to defeat their malicious ends.
Our brothers and our sons, we call
—our nephews and our friends.
These dear ones to us all are
who we always choose to send.
From their youthful dreams we snatch
them up and ask them to kill or die,
to endure horrors we shall never know
after we have said goodbye.
Yes, it’s true, honor can be found on
the fields where guns and lilies grow,
where our boys, now men, will surely
learn things we shall never know.
Yet, are we merely left to dream of them,
to pray for them, the boys we send to war?
Can we not some day, some way, the reason
or the wisdom find to finally say no more?