Uncle Charlie's Friend

I was barely ten years old When I heard the news Couldn’t quite comprehend Why Marshall wasn’t coming home People said he was the best of them My Uncle Charlie’s friend I can remember my Ma and Pop All their friends crying out loud The whole town coming out For a man everybody loved Sent off to a foreign land Never coming home again When Uncle Charlie came home Used to sit on the porch He and his drums playing a song Damning the Viet Cong in Marshall’s name Used to look at him through the smoke Watch him shake, the blunt of people’s jokes Seemed to have an unquenchable thirst Twenty-two going past a hundred What it was I never understood Turned him into a piece of wood Thirty years gone by Seem to have a different view As I look back on things I never knew I see my Uncle Charlie’s friend in a different light No longer just a name As I’ve watched some of my friends go It’s dawned on me why the whole town turned out For Uncle Charlie’s friend The smoke has cleared, the thirst is gone Only the echos of drums remain On the porch of a house no longer there My memory knows him as Marshall What’s left of the town Speaks of him as the best of them Though they haven’t thought of him in years The way and why he died, they haven’t forgotten It’s only now I comprehend, the pain and grief My Pa’s brother and the whole town felt For my Uncle Charlie’s, my Uncle Charlie’s friend.