13 red and white stripes flying
White for skin and red for dying
Sure you want to die for your country?
Bloody bombings blast in Beirut
Butchers dressed in camouflage suits
Down south we protect our money
You claim to be a rebel but without a cause
You’ll only get chewed up and spit out by those top brass jaws
And I want to send a telegram tied to a brick
To the executive who watches from the safe end of the stick
The Nazis and the KKK understand what it means
When the posters at your high school say
“The Few – The Proud – The Marines”
I’m out to sea without a rudder
If one man dies they’ll draft another
No one cares except his mother
Because he’s out to sea without a rudder
My ID card is clipped to my lapel
It reads, “USA INCORPORATED
ARMED FORCE BECHTEL”
Do you really think you’re fighting to protect your liberty
Didn’t you hear what daddy told you
In ‘Nam they sent the brothers out front so that they’d soak up the brunt
Whatever color, they controlled you
Go and give your life just to take that hill
Didn’t take too long for you to learn how to kill
You’re landing on a foreign beach-head,
Pray just once before you get dead
If not then, not much time ’til you will
The workers or non-workers like you
Don’t understand what it means
They mean the officers who expend you from a desk
When they say, “The Few – The Proud – The Marines”
They’re out to sea without a rudder
A million drown one after the other
You’ll go down in blood screaming “MOTHER!”
Because you’re out to sea without a rudder
And although I don’t hate you in a personal sense
It’s the blood that’s on your badges makes me so intense
Your favorite star won’t talk about it
When you do, they’re shocked about it
Don’t you want to please your public
Touch the issue, hands get dirty
Play love songs until you’re thirty
That is if you’re not inducted
I really do wish that I could just have fun
But the sound of helicopters makes me want to run
And my stomach goes cold each time I see a gun
In the hand of parade marchers saying that it’s fun
And an educational experience,
A world-wise modern scene
To go all over the world as a visual threat –
Who says they’re proud? The Marines
Because we’re out to sea without a rudder
If one man dies they’ll draft another
You storm the beach to kill your brother
Because you’re out to sea without a rudder
I said you’re out to sea without a rudder
And every time one dies they’ll draft another
You storm the beach to kill your brother
Because he’s out to sea without a rudder…
© Rader, Dinwiddie, Jackson