16 years old when I went to the war   To fight for a land fit for heroes   God on my side and a gun in my hand   Chasing my days down to zero      And I marched and I fought and I bled and I died   And I never did get any older   But I knew at the time that a year in the line   Was a long enough life for a soldier      We all volunteered and we wrote down our names   And we added two years to our ages   Eager for life and ahead of the game   Ready for history's pages      And we brawled and we fought and we whored till we stood   Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder   A thirst for the hun, we were food for the gun   And that's what you are when you're soldiers      I heard my friend cry and he sank to his knees   Coughing blood as he screamed for his mother   And I fell by his side and that's how we died   Clinging like kids to each other      And I lay in the mud and the guts and the blood   And I wept as his body grew colder   And I called for my mother and she never came   Though it wasn't my fault and I wasn't to blame      The day not half over and ten thousand slain   And now there's nobody remembers our names   And that's how it is for a soldier