Patterson wrote the song after meeting a soldier home from a tour in Iraq but already slated to return for a second go-round.
When my cousin came home from his first tour a couple years ago he spoke to my little brother's second-grade class. Most of the kids asked questions like "what's your best gun?" or "what's your biggest bomb?" and he humored them as best he could. Then one little boy piped up and asked point-blank "Did you ever shoot anyone?" The teacher immediately intervened and told him he didn't have to answer. But in that moment his eyes went out of focus and his voice, when it returned, had grown softer, gentler, sadder. He looked the eight-year-olds on the floor all around him straight in the eye and said:
"War is a very bad thing, kids. And sometimes in a war you have to do things you would never, ever want to do."
He's never spoken of it again and we don't pry. But this song brings me back to that moment and my cousin's little boy, already growing in the womb during that interview and born while he was away on a second tour.
Patterson wrote the song after meeting a soldier home from a tour in Iraq but already slated to return for a second go-round.
When my cousin came home from his first tour a couple years ago he spoke to my little brother's second-grade class. Most of the kids asked questions like "what's your best gun?" or "what's your biggest bomb?" and he humored them as best he could. Then one little boy piped up and asked point-blank "Did you ever shoot anyone?" The teacher immediately intervened and told him he didn't have to answer. But in that moment his eyes went out of focus and his voice, when it returned, had grown softer, gentler, sadder. He looked the eight-year-olds on the floor all around him straight in the eye and said:
"War is a very bad thing, kids. And sometimes in a war you have to do things you would never, ever want to do."
He's never spoken of it again and we don't pry. But this song brings me back to that moment and my cousin's little boy, already growing in the womb during that interview and born while he was away on a second tour.