“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