“What a cruel thing is war.”
Robert E. Lee
He was an ordinary young guy
Who enlisted in the Army one day
He shipped off to the vast Pacific
He was my good old Uncle Ray
Prior to enlisting in World War II
He had a job in a big city factory
He hung out in a neighborhood bar
With his very loyal old dog Shaggy
When Ray bravely shipped off to war
Shaggy went looking for him everyday
The bar owner felt sorry for this mutt
He gave him his own barstool one day
Ray was wounded on a Pacific island
But he made it back home to Chicago
Everyone in our family was so ecstatic
Everyone in our family had missed him so
Not long after he arrived back home
Uncle Ray bought a brand new car
He took Shaggy and me for a ride
After showing it off at the local bar
He drove us to the big city’s center
It was my first Memorial Day Parade
My uncle soon found us a front row seat
The three of us sat comfortably in the shade
As the military bands went marching by
I saw tears well up in my uncle’s eyes
I asked him why he was crying so much
He said for all his buddies who had died
Soon afterward Uncle Ray got very sick
He’d come home with shrapnel in his brain
Far too quickly he’d joined the valiant fallen
We all wept at his solemn funeral in the rain
Ray’s old pal Shaggy was also now so very lost
He again went looking for him at that bar each day
They said his dog died lying there on that barstool
On a very sad Memorial holiday the very next May
He was an ordinary young guy
Who enlisted in the Army one day
He shipped off to the vast Pacific
He was my good old Uncle Ray
“What a cruel thing is war.”
©2007, Mr. Ed
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