Billy, don't be a hero, don't be a fool with your life
Billy, don't be a hero, come back and make me your wife
And as he started to go, she said keep your pretty head low
Billy, don't be a hero, come back to me.
I was thinking that this song is out of date, and should probably be rewritten to reflect the fact that soon, women in the United States may be fighting along side men in combat (See Women in Combat: US Military on the Verge of Making it Official)
Maybe this song could be rewritten so that it is from the perspective of a young man whose girlfriend is about to go off to war. Here, I'll give some songwriter a head start:
Julie, don't be a hero, don't be a fool with your life
Julie, don't be a hero, come back and make me your husband
And as she started to go, he said keep your pretty head low
Julie, don't be a hero, come back to me.
I was a teenager when this song came out. I remember my mother's disgust at the lyrics of this song, saying that it encouraged young men to become draft dodgers like Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney (see Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney: Two "Draft Dodgers" but with a Difference).
I'm not opposed to war - if it is a just war. If Canada decided to declare war on the United States and started sending troops across the border I think America would have a moral right to defend ourselves. But our War on Terror is a lot harder to justify. And personally, while I don't think we should have just turned the other cheek after 9/11, I am not at all convinced that we should have gone to war against Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think that much of the epidemic of suicides in the US military is due to the fact that many of our servicemen (and women) agree with me! (see also, Army Suicides This Year Exceed Combat Deaths).
In one of Patrick Buchanan's books, he says (in regards to the War on Terror) that: "They (the terrorists) were over here because we were over there." Smart man, Patrick Buchanan!
The song, Billy Don't be Hero, has a sad ending:
"I heard his fiancee got a letter
that told how Billy died that day
The letter said that he was a hero
She should be proud he died that way.
I heard she threw the letter away."
