Where are all the smiling kids of your school's Christmas play?
Where are all the quarterbacks who always saved the day?
Where are all the romeos who swept young hearts away?
Winds picked them up and took them far…
Our boys were blown away to war.

Remember Billy Schneider and his stack of baseball cards?
Or what about big Joe LeRoc, the leader of the Lords?
They tell me that young Jimmy's gone, who used to mow the yards.
From Viet Nam to Zanzibar…
Our boys were blown away to war.

Those schoolboy faces turn to shock as bullets pass their heads.
From innocence to horror as they see the blood they've shed
Instead of fighting just for fun they fight for life instead.
Young innocence is scattered far
When boys are blown away to war.

No boys return from battlelines, for into men they've grown
With faces aged a thousand years from what the war has shown.
Cheer the lucky who returned and, for the rest, a moan
A Purple Heart or Silver Star
In place of boys who went to war.