Just another day outside of Baghdad
I was assigned to the raid
I was a 22-year-old Sergeant
With a wife and two kids back in the States
Everything had gone as well as it could
No one had shot at us, no one had run
I was questioning a woman in the courtyard
When I heard the sound of a machine gun
I dreamed of the mountains
I dreamed of sleeping through the night
I dreamed of getting home uninjured
To the stars of my own sky
The soldier who had fired
Pointed at a black pick-up truck
He said, “I saw a man in the back there
With an AK-47 aimed at us”
So me and him and two other guys
Ran up to check it out
And when my buddy saw what he had done,
“MEDIC, MEDIC,” was all he could shout
He dreamed of the mountains
He dreamed of sleeping through the night
He dreamed of getting home uninjured
To the stars of his own sky
I was there to translate
So I listened, I understood
These men were carpenters
The supposed AK-47 was a piece of wood
Four Iraqi men were crying
Repeating, repeating, “Why? Why?”
And in their arms they carried a limp and twisted child
He was a boy about three years old
With a bullet hole in his head
And the white shirts of his fathers
Were quickly turning red
He dreamed of the mountains
He dreamed of sleeping through the night
He dreamed of getting home uninjured
Under the stars of his own sky