Story Behind The Song

CC Carter was inspired to write this song on Thanksgiving 2005 while thinking of the soldiers in Iraq.

Song Description

Written in the first person as a letter home from a young soldier serving in the war in Iraq.

Lyrics

I wish I could be in Kentucky for Thanksgiving.
I remember how you begged me not to go.
I wanted to help and get those bastards back for 1911, and there was just so many things I didn't know.
They said there would be candy bars and flowers.
They said they'd welcome us with open arms.
They said it to my buddy from Chicago, who died today in another roadside bomb.

But the president sure looked handsome in that flight suit.
Though the mission accomplished sign behind him was a sham.
A mortor round just missed our position.
And it's just another night here in the big mid-eastern Vietnam.
I don't think Jesus would have liked the boys at Lockheed Martin.
And mamma, all the tv news is just a lie.
As the rich old men in Washington get richer,
Iraqi children starve and soldiers die.
Yesterday we found a young boy holdin' his dead sister.
And what I saw in his eyes was a hate as bright as burning coal.
Mom, I don't believe this war has won him over,
but it sure has left a stain upon my soul.
There's a rumor flying down the line this morning.
They're shiftin' the battalion to the border of Iran,
and I sure do have a real uneasy feelin'.
I'll ask the captain to mail this letter for me if he can.

They reextended our reextensions without warning.
I don't believe that I'll be seeing Bowling Green again.
So remember me to the blue hills of Kentucky,
and know I'll always love you, your son Jim.

And tell Juan and John and Clara Bell and Sara,
no matter kind of lies that they tell them "just say no."
Say Uncle Jim said to slip on south to Costa Rica.
Go to Amsterdam or North Ontario.

And I don't think Jesus would have liked the boys at Halliburton.
And mamma all the tv news is just a lie.
As the rich old men in Washington get richer,
Iraqi children starve and soldiers die.
I think the corporations of the world are taking over,
while all these children starve and soldiers die.