When I left my home and my family my mother said to me "Son, it's not how many Germans you kill that counts It's how many people you set free!"
So I packed my bags brushed my cap Walked out into the world seventeen years old Never kissed a girl
Took the train to Voronezh that was as far as it would go Changed my sacks for a uniform bit my lip against the snow I prayed for mother Russia in the summer of '43 And as we drove the Germans back I really believed That God was listening to me
We howled into Berlin tore the smoking buildings down Raised the red flag high burnt the reichstag brown I saw my first American and he looked a lot like me He had the same kinda farmer's face said he'd come from some place called Hazzard, Tennessee
Then the war was over my discharge papers came Me and twenty hundred others went to Stettiner for the train Kiev! said the commissar from there your own way home But I never got to Kiev we never came by home Train went north to the Taiga we were stripped and marched in file Up the great siberian road for miles and miles and miles and miles Dressed in stripes and tatters in a gulag left to die All because Comrade Stalin was scared that we'd become too westernized!
Used to love my country used to be so young Used to believe that life was the best song ever sung I would have died for my country in 1945 But now only one thing remains but now only one thing remains But now only one thing remains but now only one thing remains The brute will to survive!