Sixteen 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 ´til 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,
And the day´s not half over and ten thousand slain,
And now there´s nobody remembers our names
And that´s how it is for a soldier.