I was lucky you know I wasn't there I didn't have to go and face my fear But still this hidden pain Comes up from the belly of the beast And even ten years past We're haunted now from both sides of the truth And the ghosts of Dien Bien Phu This war keeps hanging on As if it were today 'Cause many a good men died On the road from Tet to Hue They won every battle they fought But the one that raged at home And now the only words that count
Are the names carved out in stone As tears fall onto stone Black Wall Black Wall Sound the bugle boy For a twenty-one gun salute Call for the ticker tape And a**emble all the troops Not a word about dominoes Or the horrors of napalm Let Johnny come marching home And greet him with a prayer and a psalm For the boys of Vietnam The boys of Vietnam Let Johnny come back to the world Back to the world Back to the world