South Hill

When my girl got pregnant well I dropped right out of school
 But there's no work in South Hill so what else could I do?
 The recruiter's came-a-knocking when this whole damn thing began
 They promised me a college education food and medicine
 They said I wouldn't spend a dime if I got deployed overseas
 Plus Baghdad is safer now than old Washington, DC
 So I signed that dotted line right quick and in a blink of an eye
 I found myself at Fort Benning where I practiced forming lines
 Well Fallujah became my home, my comfort and my dread
 The marines that came through first man they tore this place to shreds
 With the sound of crushing Amtracs and the whine of their Humvee's
 Calling in them A-10 air strikes man I wish I could have seen it
 But when we got to town I realized we were only legs
 We do dismounted patrols we do searches and do raids
 We hear the crack of small arms fire and the blast from IED's
 We hurry up and wait, suck in dust and stay low key
 And I cannot stop this pounding in my head
 I thought we were doing right but that's not what folks back home have said
 Sometimes I can't tell which way is up or which is down
 But I'm oddly at ease with this chaos all around
 Then one day out on patrol doing time out in the heat
 We were ordered to a neighborhood to talk to folks out on the street
 To gather information on where some weapons may be stored
 Or to see if the Mujahideen had hauled them off out of Fallujah and to the north
 Well my platoon got lost and made more then one wrong turn
 We should have called in our position fast but we blamed each other first
 Then we started taking sniper fire - god damn them all
 We couldn't find the shooter no where he had us pinned down one and all
 Well friendies they caught up and we took back that god damned street
 But something wasn't right and I was feeling really weak
 My adrenaline was high and I was scared and I could hardly breathe
 I heard doc argue with the Sarg that morphine might kill me
 That's the last thing I remember that and heat and clear blue sky
 And thinking about my girl back home and my daughters little eyes
 I took that bullet in Fallujah and I'm laid up in Germany
 And I'm headed back stateside to the care of Walter Reed
 And I cannot feel a thing below my waist
 Doc tried to help me man but it was too late
 Now I don't know who is right or who is wrong
 But I'm fucked up and I want to go back home
 And I cannot stop this pounding in my head
 I thought we were doing right but that's not what folks back home have said
 Now I don't know which way is up or which is down
 But one day I'll stand firmly on the ground
 Yes one day I'll stand firmly on the ground