The Soldier chords by Walter Martin

SimplifiedC · F · G

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Intro 1

Verse 1
C 
 (C major) Tonight while Notre Dame is burning
F 
French people  (F major) gather around
it and softly sing Ave Maria
C 
G 
 (C major) And the  (G major) whole world cries
And my mind drifts back
C 
to  (C major) long ago

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Verse 2
C 
When I was  (C major) 20 years old,
I went into the service
F 
A boy from  (F major) Staten Island in the
C 
army corps of engin (C major) eers
G 
C 
And I  (G major) got shipped off to sunny Honolu (C major) lu
And I trained and played golf every
day in sunny Honolulu
F 
And my future brother (F major) -
in- law from
The Bronx was in Patton's
C 
army in Europe  (C major) 
G 
 (G major) Two boys from the big city
C 
so far  (C major) away from home

Verse 3
C 
One day,  (C major) I was playing golf in Honolulu
F 
 (F major) When an airplane came and it picked us
Up and I didn't know where
C 
we were  (C major) go ing
G 
 (G major) And  it took us to an island
C 
called  (C major) Iwo Jima
And I set up communication lines for
the soldiers there on Iwo Jima
F 
We'd already  (F major) taken the island,
C 
so I didn't see much fight (C major) ing
G 
Soon I  (G major) was running short of things
C 
to do on  (C major) Iwo Jima

Verse 4
C 
One night, I was wandering  (C major) around
and I walked into a dark cave
F 
And my  (F major) eyes water as I tell
this story to my
Children, and my grandchildren,
C 
and my great-  (C major) grandchildren
G 
But I  (G major) found a dead Japanese
C 
soldier lying  (C major) there
And I poked him, and he was dead,
and I looked at him
F 
And I found a  (F major) picture in his shirt
C 
pocket of a young  (C major) child
F 
And I put  (F major) it back in his shirt pocket,
C 
and I wept  (C major) 
G 
And I  (G major) took his hand grenade,
C 
and an unexploded shell, and I left  (C major) 

Verse 5
C 
And I took the shell back to  (C major) the
Quonset hut, and when no one was around
F 
I emp (F major) tied out all of
C 
the gun (C major) powder
F 
And later (F major) , I brought that shell back
G 
Home, back  (G major) when people
used to smoke
C 
People used it for an ash (C major) tray

Verse 6
C 
And when the war was over  (C major) 
I married my soldier friend
from the Bronx's sister
F 
We moved into a  (F major) little house near where
I grew up on Staten Island
C 
G 
 (C major) And  (G major) every week,
C 
we had milk and beer delivered to our front  (C major) door
We had five children,
one right after the other
F 
And they played  (F major) in the yard,
C 
and in the summers we went up to the lake  (C major) 
G 
And in Au (G major) gust,
we would go back home to Staten Island
C 
 (C major) 

Verse 7
And our oldest daughter had a baby
when she was just 18
F 
And then she  (F major) got sick
And she died when she was 27, and
C 
nothing was ever the same  (C major) 
G 
But she left  (G major) behind her
C 
8- year- old daugh (C major) ter
So my wife and I,
we adopted this girl and we raised her
F 
C 
A quiet  (F major) little girl in a world of old  (C major) people

Verse 8
F 
We took her to the  (F major) Nutcracker and the
Catholic Church and we played
C 
 (C major) lots of cards
F 
And she  (F major) dyed her hair pink in the 8th
Grade, but we dyed it back
C 
the  (C major) next day
G 
And the fella  (G major) singing this song is her
Husband now,
C 
and he idolizes me for some reas (C major) on

Verse 9
C 
And these  (C major) days, in the summers
He leaves his daughters at the lake
with us
F 
And they garden  (F major) with me
And I sing soldier songs to them
C 
when they  (C major) go to bed
G 
While he's home  (G major) in New York trying
C 
To write funny songs for TV  (C major) commercials
F 
 (F major) 

Interlude 1

Verse 10
C 
Last summer  (C major) at my 96th birthday in August
F 
I looked at my chil (F major) dren holding their
C 
Children, and their chil (C major) dren's children
F 
I sipped a  (F major) cold beer
And ate peanuts on the porch
C 
with my brother (C major) -  in- law
F 
We talked about old  (F major) friends and gardening
C 
and the wives we'd both  (C major) lost
G 
And my  (G major) old heart was overcome with both
C 
F 
G 
F 
joy and sad (C major) ness  (F major)  (G major)  (F major) 
G 
F 
G 
F 
 (G major)  (F major)  (G major)  (F major) 