When I was a little boy

We played from dawn til dark

Chasing baseballs hit aloft

In our imaginary ball parks

Running fields to and fro

Shooting our toy guns

At imaginary enemies

We thought it was such fun

Playing baseball confident

One day we'd make the bigs

But never understanding

It was really one tough gig

Another gig was coming

For which we'd all been trained

From childhood unrealized

In our minds ingrained

Those childhood days so precious, few

No sooner had we grown

We're told of foreign enemies

And into war we're thrown

Young men from other countries

With dreams not unlike our own

We're thrust in mortal combat

In some distant hotzone

For what ??? I asked so many times

This senseless loss of life

What did we gain in all those years

Of toil pain and strife

The years have passed and here we are

Our knowledge has increased

That now we send our daughters

To fight in the middle east

Before I pass I hope to see

A world in which there's peace

Where dead mens wars are distant thoughts

And higher goals we reach

Where the sacredness of human life

And value of each soul

Of our precious sons and daughters

Their gift of life extol

When I was a little boy

Seems not so long ago

That graying hair and different eyes

Have not tarnished the glow

The dreaming of that better life

In which we don't destroy

The vision and the purpose

Of when I was a little boy