Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Deep green crusty uniform and a row of medals that look like teeth, a peeked cap sharp enough to slice bread, twinkling inquisitive knowing eyes. Polished parade ground shoes echo down a corridor of decision in the halls of power, the Pentagon, the White House.  Round table conferences about blowing up parts of the world for the good of the whole, their decison, based on infromation, the sword of damocles, swift justice, stamp out the enemy. 

These things swing like a pendulum in his mind, reccomedations, considerations, frustrations, more troops on the ground. More armour, more everything that’ll beat the enemy, yet they’re still there in the woodwork in the rocks, blended into the terrain with improvised explosive devices, the war goes on. He foresees a surge, a wave of troops that will over run, but Iwo Jima says the cost will be great, many lives lost for the belief of the state. Perfect lives mutilated by hot metal and exploding shrapnel, moans and cries in the battlefield.

He’s been there, as well as West Point, he’s smelled the fear of battle, the agony of losing colleagues, the 100% adrenilane all the time, no release, no relenting, each moment spent just focused on surviving, with bullets whizzing over his head, wondering how to take that gun emplacement on the hill, and in heroic strides he someow manages to do it.. Yes, he’s been there, but these lives he’s commiting, they weigh heavy as a hump backed whale, a trail of conscience that flows behind him like a bridal train, filling his mind with thoughts of other times,when the world was simpler and there was just the farm and getting up and feeding the calves and mucking out the barn, yes happier times, simplicity of childhood, how he wishes it were so easy now…..