Peace time veteran

A peacetime soldier at seventeen

I just wanted to escape, it was after nam

Basic done, they sent me on a plane ride

Somewhere far away, I just wanted to earn

my pay

And they call me a peacetime veteran

Like the swear carried no weight

I’m just a peacetime vet

Never heard of the DMZ

Naive, just a kid, just a teen

The 38th parallel,

Where I heard it was real hell

I was now there

And they called me a peacetime veteran

I was made to wear the name and never cared

You’re just a peacetime vet

Ingman Range in ’81

commotion came like a thunderstorm

Black helmets in jeeps came charging in

The sound of fire was never strange

But something terrible struck that day.

I’m just a peacetime Veteran.

At Ingman Range, four men died that day

From an attack that came from within

“You’re just a peacetime vet”

As if no blood was ever shed

A peacetime vet

But I can’t forget the dead

Kwangju, a city on fire

Driving a KATUSA general through the wire

Couldn’t speak the language, just a detail

But I saw the smoke, I heard the wail

Many dead, and still they said

“You’re just a peacetime veteran”

Like the years don’t bear a cost

peacetime vet

But I know what we all lost

I’m just a peacetime veteran

Two years in the Infantry Division

There was a ville, a black-market mission

Where thunder runs roared through the night

Trading shadows just to get by

Strange kind of order in a stranger life

They call me a peacetime vet

Like it all just fades away

A peacetime vet

But those nights still burn today

I’m just a peacetime vet

Years later I learned the worst

Rainbow herbicides stained the earth

Where I had crawled low in the dirt for two years

Who knew what damage lived unseen?

And still they call me a peacetime vet

Like the story held no pain

A peacetime vet was a name of shame

But the poison Came and still remains

I’m just a peace time Vet