Kyle Thompson: Music

Welcome to Iwo Jima



Invasion Day on the Rising Sun
Heavy metal and roaring guns
Woe and memory bring back tears
Kept in check for 50 years…

How the gates dropped down into the sand
Like a welcome mat to “No Man’s Land”
Machine guns raked the front three rows
So up an over the sides we’d go…

And it’s welcome to Iwo Jima boys! Welcome to Saipan!
Welcome to the Philippines…now march’m to Batan.
Welcome Joe to Tinian and welcome boys to Guam.
Welcome to all you dead G.I.’s!
And Rose would play a song.

When you looked to your left or right
As far as you could see
Men were floating in the waves
And dying on the beach…

As mortar rounds begin to pound
Their craters in the sand
Later off the deadly shores
The fighting’s hand to hand…

And it’s welcome to Iwo Jima boys! Welcome to Saipan!
Welcome to the Philippines…now march’m to Batan.
Welcome Joe to Peleilu and welcome boys to Guam.
Welcome to all you dead Marines!
And Rose would play a song.

We burned them in their trenches
And we shot’m out of trees
We blew them out their caves and holes
With sacks of TNT…

And the smell of rotting bodies
Filled the South Pacific air
And those who’d seen the monster
Flashed a killers hollow stare.

Welcome to Iwo Jima boys! Welcome to Saipan!
Welcome to the Philippines…now march’m to Batan.
Welcome to Okinawa Joe…you won’t be going home.
For every day of that awful war…

I thank god we dropped the bomb.