The Universal Soldier

These are the lyrics to an anti war song by Buffy Sainte Marie , which has recently been swimming around my mind. She is a wonderful Canadian Indian songwriter and these words seem very apt right now - one of the mysteries of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been that there has been no public support for them and yet still they went ahead . Maybe its time that we start calling the tune .

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic , a Hindu , an atheist , a Jain
a Buddhist and Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada
he's fighting for France
he's fighting for the USA
he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says its for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on

He's the Universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.