We met as soul mates / On Parris Island / We left as inmates / From an asylum / And we were sharp / As sharp as knives / And we were so gung ho / To lay down our lives

We came in spastic / Like tameless horses / We left in plastic / As numbered corpses / And we learned fast / To travel light / Our arms were heavy / But our bellies were tight

We had no home front / We had no soft soap / They sent us Playboy / They gave us Bob Hope / We dug in deep / And shot on sight / And prayed to Jesus Christ / With all of our might

We had no cameras / To shoot the landscape / We passed the hash pipe / And played our Doors tapes / And it was dark, so dark at night / And we held on to each other / Like brother to brother / We promised our mothers we’d write

And we would all go down together / We said we’d all go down together / Yes we would all go down together

Remember Charlie, remember Baker / They left their childhood on every acre / And who was wrong? And who was right? / It didn’t matter in the thick of the fight

We held the day / In the palm of our hand / They ruled the night / And the night seemed to last as long as six weeks

On Parris Island / We held the coastline / They held the highlands / And they were sharp / As sharp as knives / They heard the hum of our motors / They counted the rotors / And waited for us to arrive

And we would all go down together / We said we’d all go down together / Yes we would all go down together

[By Billy Joel © Columbia Records, 1982]