Friendly Fire

They’ll give you a gong
They’ll give you stripes
They’ll send you to ’ell and back
But neither the glory nor the gong
Won’t bring home Sid and Jack

They’d not gone long, on recce patrol
A view of the air-strip to see
“The foreground at four”, and don’t be slack
Spelt the end of Sid and of Jack.

It was ‘friendly fire’, the papers said
‘They was in an ’ostile truck’,
The chopper called fire, on ’is way back.
Now there’s nothing of Sid or of Jack.

We took that strip the next ’alf hour
The only thing there was sand
But among the mess at the end of the track
Was a boot, an’ a belt that was slack!

For Remembrance Day 12 November 1995

Morning worship ~ Penrallt Baptist Church Bangor