Dave Wendelin: Music
The Price
(Dave Wendelin)
This song was inspired by a quiet bike ride through Arlington National Cemetery. As I rode through the Fort Meyer gate into the cemetery, I saw to my right what must have been thousands of white marble headstones from the year 1863 and most of them were marked 'Unknown'. My son Zachary had just flown to Japan to start his four year duty in the Navy, and it hit home...How many mothers and fathers of any nation have sent their sons or daughters off to fight in some war, and then never heard from them again...never knew what had happened to them. A very high price to pay.
I see you my son so strong and straight
With eyes that betray no fear or hate
The dreams that you see, just beginning now
I see you my son so strong and straight.
And now a call to arms sends you far away
To fight and to die in some foreign place
For a cause that is hollow you will turn the sand
Red with your only life.
Nothing in this life can show to me
We were meant to hurt so heartlessly
And is the loss of one life worth the price
Of the tears that fall from a mother’s eyes
Or the ache in a father’s broken nights.
And now all that’s left is a memory
A name etched in black there for all to see
But in the twilight of my life you’ll forever be
My son so strong and straight.
Nothing in this life can show to me
We were meant to hurt so heartlessly
And is the loss of one life worth the price
Of the tears that fall from a mother’s eyes
Or the ache in a father’s broken nights.