Name: Watching Combat
Duration: P00H03M15S
Description: Sergeant Saunders as played by Vic Morrow was my hero in the 60s. In this song, I guess I was hoping that some of Saunders' power might guide me through my Mother's difficult end-of-life times.

Watching Combat

from Box Elder by Larry Hirshberg

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Sergeant Saunders as played by Vic Morrow was my hero in the 60s. In this song, I guess I was hoping that some of Saunders' power might guide me through my Mother's difficult end-of-life times.

lyrics

Most of you will not remember
The rest you never knew
Sergeant Saunders’ character
And what that man could do
In ’44 and ’45
On TV, colors bright
He showed a boy, who’s now a man
The hero’s way to love and fight

And now I’m watching combat
Of a different timeless kind
No Germans with their Lugers
It’s the invasion of my mind
D-Day in my mind

From the beach-head of my teens
Where parts of me were killed
Into the France of starting out
With my brothers in the hills

And now I’m watching combat
Who made me dig this hole?
Not Germans with their mortars
Was the Stukas of my soul
Dive-bombers of my soul

I need to be like Sergeant Saunders
But with a Tommy gun of peace
Unwavering cartoon solution
But in my head, not on TV

Because now I’m watching combat
This episode’s the one
No creepy SS psychopaths
Just my mother’s son
I am my mother’s son

And I need to be like Sergeant Saunders
But with a Tommy gun of peace
Unwavering cartoon solution
But in my head, not on TV
Just her memory and me
Fighting inland from the sea
Berlin will soon be free
I’m a sniper shooting healing bullets from the family tree.

credits

from Box Elder, released January 1, 2009

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Larry Hirshberg Missoula, montana

The years reveal what the moments are made to conceal.

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