A soldier took a posting to fight an enemy
In the face of hidden snipers that he would never see.
His fiancée, she told him as she tried in vain to hold him,
'Johnny please don't you cry for me;
You know that I would love to say
That I'm gonna try and make you stay
But Johnny please don't you lie for me....'

You are a soldier in the army, you can't promise for tomorrow,
You've no written guarantees to be alive.
No contracts or agreements that you've signed against your freedom,
To protect you from the bullets and the mines.
So say you love me and then kiss me
But please go before you miss me
Forget you ever left me,....behind.'

When Johnny was a little boy he played at guns and war
But the army here was nothing like it seemed to him before.
People they just laughed as he stood there in the street
And the children threw the bombs that lay shattered at his feet;
He said 'Hell is made for heroes you know but heroes never die,
'They just fade from your memory like clouds in a summer sky.

Well Johnny was out patrolling, one evening in the park
When a shot destroyed the silence, a bullet whistled through the dark.
The sniper's sights had found him and his friends all gathered round him,..
To see it went right to his heart.
He said, 'I didn't want to die this way,
'Tomorrow would have been my wedding day,....'
That was all Johnny had time to say.....

You are a soldier in the army, you can't promise for tomorrow,
You've no written guarantees to be alive.
No contracts or agreements that you've signed against your freedom,
To protect you from the bullets and the mines.
So say you love me and then kiss me
But please go before you miss me;
Forget you ever left me,....behind.

Bye-bye Johnny, goodbye.

Bye-bye Johnny, goodbye.

Bye-bye Johnny,…


PB 10/04/1974

A related poem to this theme,.. please read IT'S O.K. to get a view from a soldier's perspective.