Trying to Find a Way Home

Silently marching in ragged formation Winding in wheelchairs to the cadence of canes Making their way past the half-empty viewing stand A solemn procession on one last campaign Fifty-eight thousand names etched in black granite Are calling in grim monotone To the stern soldiers seeking an end to their journey They've been trying for years to come home Come home (come home), come home You who are weary, come home Home from the long-ago far away battlefield Home from the nightmares, the flashbacks to hell Home from the psycho wards, the scag shooting galleries Home from the death rows and the dark prison cells Home to a country in need of a healing We're waiting for you to come home Jimmy Mahoney served his hitch in the Navy Stayed up late last night, wrote these words on a sign "No more wars, no more lies, no more memorials" Wears it around his neck, marching in line A Vietnam Mariner carries his albatross Telling his tale to atone For the sins of a nation that seems to have lost its way Jimmy, can you take us back home? Come home (come home), come home You who are weary, come home Home from the battlefields where we still fight today Home from the bottomless, treacherous mud Home from the oilfields, the coffee plantations Home from the diamond mines glistening with blood Home to a nation in need of redemption Tryin' to find a way home Down at the monument tolling the alphabet Faces reflecting in the dark polished stone Hoping you can't find the names that you know are there Names of the friends who can never come home And though no one speaks of it, searching the list of names You can't help but look for your own And when you don't find it, you turn away silently Time to be heading back home Come home, come home You who are weary, come home Home to a country in need of a healing We're waiting for you to come home