Lies

Fighting for freedom around the world
Pushing homeland views twisted and curled

Heroes rule the day
Our politicians like to say
Heroes sent to fight, sent to die
With no question why
Or what its for when
War is the norm
Just bow down and conform

Forget the coming storm
This is why they were born
Heroes with guns destroyin' lives
Heroes dropping bombs til nothin' survives
Heroes fighting for lies contrived
Heroes alive becoming dead inside

Used like tools of the trade
Recruiters call them easy prey
Ya know
Young American, proud, and brave
A peasant, a pawn, a slave
Fighting on the wrong side of a bet somebody made
Heroes sent to an early grave

Heroes fighting for the cause
Somethin' bigger than international laws
Never a fight for profit, never a grudge
No, our fight is just
A hero's moral must
So says a crooked judge

Commercials gloss over the loss and the mess
Never giving a clear view of the teenager with a hole in his chest,
Or the kid eating through a tube in his neck
None of that, no, just pay that hero some respect
(and mail in that tax check)

Heroes facing "clear and present" dangers
from distant strangers gettin' sent back
in a flag wrapped container
Sons without a savior
leavin' but a physical remainder

Pull the pin, launch the grenade
Wars like trainwrecks every decade
A broken record charade
And I gotta say
Uncle Sam be damned
War after war plotted and planned
"defending freedom" is all the people understand

From jungles to beaches and deserts of sand
The Koreas to Viet-nam
Columbia, Cuba, and the Caribbean
All around the world, heroes defending freedom again and again

Heroes sent to fight
in wars with no end in sight
Stuck in a tunnel with no light
All with no one to stand up
And ask why our boys gotta die defending lie after lie after lie