You would've made a great dad If you'd lived that long Your eyes are warm and kind on the evening news There was a big celebration when you walked of that bus With all your limbs intact we thought you'd made it back to us And no one knew, what you'd been made to do over there You were almost twenty-two when they shipped you out With the sixth motor transport battalion Operation Freedom, also known as the war No place for a good kid just trying to pay for school And no one knew, what you'd be made to do over there Yellow ribbons still fluttering from the trees beside the house Memory was a cancer that you could not live without But you could not live with it Oh... no you could not live with it In the dark you held your flashlight, still listening for spiders In the days you drank alone in your old room Haunted always by the voices, by the jingling of the tags Holding on to one little corner of that flag And no one knew... Yellow ribbons still fluttering from the trees beside the house Made a pillow for your head and they laid you down Oh they laid you down Oh... oh they laid you down And no one knew What you'd been made to do And all there love couldn't keep you