The D-Day Dodgers
I signed up in '39
Up in Calgary
Harold and Little John
Both joined up with the Marines

They sent me out to Sicily
In 1943
After 38 days of hell
We landed out in Italy

The road out past, Calabria
Well it keeps its secrets well
And the river washed, and the grass it grew
And the place where young men fell

And out in Ortona
As if still falling from the sky
You can hear the echo
Of the Fallschirmjäger cry

Cheer not for the living
Although our hearts still beat
Won't you bare your heads for the 1400
Lying in the streets
I said it once before
You'll never know just what we gave
Me and the D-Day Dodgers
No one standing by our graves

And we've seen that beachhead
More times than we did not
If you didn't fight in France, they say
Well you never really fought

Well, tell that to old Smokey
Or the twenty German wives he robbed
Over on the Ronco river
With only two left in his squad

Or tell that to them boys
Lying in the mountain pass
Lying in the ditches
Or facedown in the grass

Spring of '46
Well we finally made it home
I went back to Hill Spring
Connecting telephones

Some of us could never
Keep those thoughts out of our heads
The homecoming parade
They never cried over our dead
Smokey kept on fighting
Until he could fight no more
I settled down with a wife
On Daddy's farm in '54

God blessed me with five children
And this land, it will stay free
I pray He welcomes all the D-Day Dodgers
And me