Tom Paxton - Born on the Fourth of July lyrics

As a schoolboy I played with a plastic grenade It was gray and with caps it was loaded In the dirt we would cry and dramatically die As it flew to the air and exploded As a young man my dream was to be a marine My flag was worth all I could bring it The country was young, when the anthem was sung Well it gave me the goosebumps to sing it I was born on the fourth of July No one more loyal than I When my country said so I was ready to go And I wish I'd been left there to die When I landed in 'Nam, I was Great Uncle Sam I was fighting for God and my mother And I knew what to do when my first tour was through I signed up and went back for another But it all tumbled down when we ambushed the town In the night how the metal was flying We blew it to hell, really did our job well But just women and kids did the dying I was born on the fourth of July No one more loyal than I When my country said so I was ready to go And I wish I'd been left there to die In the damn DMZ, it all ended for me The fighting broke out and we scattered One shot hit my heel, the last thing I feel The next hit my spine and it shattered In my hospital bed I could hear what was said And the word will stay with me forever With my whole life ahead, my body was dead And the word they were using was never I was born on the fourth of July No one more loyal than I When my country said so I was ready to go And I wish I'd been left there to die Now I wheel myself down to the crossroads of town To watch the young girls and their lovers And my mind is afire, it's alive with desire Christ, I'd barely begun, now it's over In my wheelchair for life, my mechanical wife I'm supposed to be cheerful and stoic I'm your old tried-and-true, Yankee Doodle to you Clean-cut, paralysed and heroic I was born on the fourth of July No one more loyal than I When my country said so I was ready to go And I wish I'd been left there to die