Let's Keep It Straight - John McCutcheon

I left home for boot camp the day I turned eighteen

It was ten weeks of hell, but I made a Marine

Stationed at Cherry Point when the call came to war

I was eager to go it’s what I was trained for

So I shipped out to Dubai with the Hundred and First

And, though we never saw action, we knew ten times worse

In bone-chilling danger we lived every day

We found one of the guys in our unit was gay

Chorus A

Let’s keep it straight when you carry a gun

It’s not what you do, boys, it’s just who you’ve done

The fate of our nation, it’s power and might

Depend on who soldiers might sleep with at night

On patrol in the jungle, my buddies and I

Came upon, to our horror, the village, Mi Lai

Midst the dead and the dying we heard one old man say

«They came and they killed, but, thank God, they weren’t gay!»

Chorus A

Bridge:

We work in your office, we teach in your schools

We pray in your churches, we live by the rules

We win your elections, we die in your wars

Who we choose to love is no business of yours

All alone on the street in the quickening night

Miles from home as my heart fills with fright

No place for a woman to be out this way

There’s a man in the shadows, God, I hope that he’s gay!

Chorus B:

Our leaders and generals all carry on

«We need separate showers and barracks and johns»

Men frightened of men, I just laugh through my tears

To think it’s what women have gone through for years

Chorus A

Tag:

I guess I misunderstood when I saw on TV

«Join Today’s Army, be all you can be»