Day After Tomorrow

I post this on behalf of my sister and myself, for our father, who fought in Vietnam from 1968 through 1969 and is our hero.

Day After Tomorrow
by Tom Waits

I got your letter
Today
An' I miss you oh so much here

I can't wait
To see you all
And I'm counting the days, dear

I still believe that there's gold
At the end of the World

An' I'll come home
To Illinois
On the day after tomorrow

It is so hard
And it's cold here
And I'm tired of taking orders

And I miss old Rockford town
Up by the Wisconsin border

What I miss you won't believe
Shovellin' snow, and rakin' leaves

And my plane will touch down
On the day after tomorrow

I close my eyes
Every night
And I dream
That I can hold you

They fill us full of lies
Everyone buys
'Bout what it means
To be a soldier

I still don't know how I'm s'posed to feel
'Bout all the blood that's been spilled

Will God on His throne
Get me back home
On the day after tomorrow?

You can't deny
The other side
Don't wanna die
Any more than we do

What I'm tryin' to say
Is, don't they pray
To the same God
That we do?

Tell me
How does God choose?
Whose prayers does He refuse?

Who turns the wheel
Who throws the dice
On the day after tomorrow?

I am not fighting
For justice
I am not fighting
For freedom

I am fighting
For my life
And another day in the World here

I just do what I've been told
We're just the gravel on the road

And only the lucky
Ones come home
On the day after tomorrow

And the summer
It too will fade
And with it brings
The winter's frost, dear

And I know
We too are made
Of all the things
That we have lost here

I'll be twenty-one today
I been savin' all my pay

And my plane
Will touch down
On the day after tomorrow

And my plane
It will touch down
On the day after tomorrow

Happy Veteran's Day! I am spending it, as I always do, with my dad. I hope you mark it well, and remember our future veterans--including my dad's old outfit, the 101st Airborne, currently fighting in Afghanistan...

Jove has sent us this sign, long in coming, and long ere it be fulfilled, though its fame shall last for ever. As the serpent ate the eight fledglings and the sparrow that hatched them, which makes nine, so shall we fight nine years at Troy, but in the tenth shall take the town.

~ The Iliad, Book II