UNIVERSAL SOLDIER
(written by Buffy Ste. Marie in the early 1960s;- i learned it at Teton Tea parties during the 1960s;
- there's a cynical parody on it called "Universal Pacifist" which i never learned)
He's five feet two, he's six feet four,
He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist and a Jain,
He's fighting for Africa, he's fighting for France,
But without him how could Hitler have condemned them at Dachau,
He's fighting for democracy, he's fighting for the Reds,
He's the Universal Soldier, and he really is to blame,
(from miriam berg's folksong collection)
Fights with missiles and with spears;
He's all of thirty-one and he's only seventeen;
He's been a soldier for about a thousand years.
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew;
He knows we shouldn't kill, and he knows we always will;
He'll kill you, my friend, for me, and me for you.
He's fighting for the U. S. A.
He's fighting for the Germans and he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war that way.
Without him Caesar would have stood alone;
He's the one who gives his body as the weapon for the wars,
And without him all this killing can't go on.
He's fighting for the peace of all;
He's the one who must decide who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
Orders come from far away no more;
They come from him, and you, and me, and, brother, can't you see
This is not the way to put an end to war?