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Breaking Through the Sunbeams

from 100 Summers by James Lee Baker

/

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about

In 2002, I joined the U.S. Army to become a cryptologic linguist. After an unexpected medical issue and conflict with my medical history, I was discharged from the military. In my platoon was a man who had joined to fight for his friends and co-workers who had died during the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City just one year earlier. He was supposed to be in one of the towers that day but was under the weather and didn’t make the trip into the city.

I still recall them screaming, asking us “what makes the green grass grow?!” and me having to, reluctantly, comply by shouting back “Blood! Bright red blood, drill sergeant!”.

lyrics

Some nights I dream that I am falling
From a window down to the street
Trying to grab hold of something
While I’m breaking through the sunbeams
And wishing that I was still asleep

I'm woken up by screaming in the darkness
On a bunk bed that feels like concrete
In the barracks of the Army
In Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
A drill sergeant calls us to our feet

He yells “what makes the green grass grow, soldiers?”
“Blood! Bright red blood!”, we shout back
In only eight weeks
We’ll be killing machines
But there’s no green gras in Iraq

(Chorus)

I think a lot about that September morning
I watched the whole thing unfold on the news
While co-workers and friends
All met their end
I was sick at home with the flu

So I handed in my two-week notice
I knew exactly what I had to do
I mustered up the courage
And I stepped out of the brokerage
And into a pair of boots

(Chorus)

credits

from 100 Summers, released September 4, 2020

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James Lee Baker Denver, Colorado

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