Father’s War

Came out of arrivals with something in his eyes that wasn't there
And you've been waiting for him beneath the white fluorescent glare
He throws his bags down, picks you up and he's spinning you around
Holding so tightly to you that you cannot even make a sound
This is your favorite memory of him, polished beautifully
You thought about it often both reflexively and dutifully
You didn't care who he was fighting or who he was fighting for
Only that your father finally'd come home from your father's war

And then eighteen years have passed, we're still in Afghanistan
With IEDs and armored Humvees, Burger Kings, and quicksand
And the folks that started up the fight are getting old and dying
And it's harder to remember just why the hell we're fighting
So they wrap the reasons in the flag, show films of 9/11
Every Sunday they remind us that all soldiers go to Heaven
It's a Heaven for Americans, the ones who please the Lord
Remember, even Jesus had to fight his Father's war

You meet a man you love who reminds you of your father
The way he used to be before his outlook got so dark
He sweeps you off your feet, carries you across the threshold
Of a new life, then he ships out; you are 22 years old
He calls you when he can from an undisclosed location
Then something happens and he's sent home, put on medication
He wakes up every night, an AR-15 in his chest; with your
Head upon his shoulder you can hear your father's war

But now laser-guided missiles beam snuff films of their immolation
Fossil fuel removal, architecture runs on radiation
Lines of code all stowed away deep inside a terabyte
An economic serfdom is conferred upon the non-compliant
You don't have to understand it all; that's okay, nobody does
It's hard for souls to comprehend the horrors they commit and thus
They do their work behind a wall, behind a screen, behind a door
So they don't see what he saw when it was your father's war

So he'll finish off his tour of duty in an office park in Maryland
Facilitating drone strikes on the border towns of Pakistan
This is all that he's told you; it's amazing he's said anything
But you've seen it on the cable news, the hospitals and weddings
And at first you think he'll be alright, he'll come home from work each evening
But he's no longer all love and light, he's silent or he's seething
And you love him more than anything but you've seen this all before
And in every way that matters this is still your father's war

It's still your father's war
It's still your father's father's war
And it's his father's war
And his father before father's war
And this is how it's gonna be
Right down through generations
War improving only on its cruelties with innovation
So we stack the dead atop the dead, like flowers on cut roses
And prove that we can take revenge and slaughter without notice
And have everything we want, and with what's left we'll wipe the floor
So maybe it's just easier to fight our father's war