Dude and Dude: Paging Buffy

They’re five feet two and they’re six feet four
They fight with missiles and with spears
They’re …

“Wait … what?!?”

“What what, dude?”

“That’s not how tha song goes, dude! Who’s ‘they’??”

“Ya know, like, us.”

“Dudes like us? Then why not just say so? Like she did.”

“B’cause, dude, when Ms Buffy Sainte-Marie wrote tha song in 1964, tha army was all dudes, ‘r near ’nuff. So smug chicks c’ld sit wit’ their guitars ‘n, um, stuff, ‘n point fingers. Sometimes one way, sometimes tha otha. Nowadays, not so much. Ya wanna pick on soldier dudes, ya gotta pick on soldier chicks, too. No free passes. C’n I play tha song now?”

“Why ya gotta keep whacking me wit’ all this whack boomer crap, huh?”

“So’s mebbe y’ll get tha idea that all this stuff we’re goin’ through now’s been done before?”

“So why should we do enny diff’rent than they did?”

“Dude?”

“Yeah?”

“Shaddap an’ listen, yeah?”

“Oh, OK, all right …”

They’re five feet two and they’re six feet four
They fight with missiles and with spears
They’re all of 31 and they’re only 17
They’ve been soldiers for a thousand years

They are Catholic, or Hindu, are atheist or Jain,
are Buddhist or a Baptist or a Jew
and they know they shouldn’t kill
and they know they always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

“That ain’t friendly, dude. Do I gotta watch ever’thin’ ya do n …”

“SHHHH!!”

And they’re fighting for Canada,
they’re fighting for France,
they’re fighting for the USA,
and they’re fighting for the Russians
and they’re fighting for Japan,
and they think we’ll put an end to war this way

And they’re fighting for Democracy
and fighting for Allah
they say it’s for the peace of all
They’re the ones who must decide
who’s to live and who’s to die
and they never see the writing on the walls

“I c’ld take ’em ta see some railroad cars. Don’t see how they c’ld miss tha writin’ on th-OWWWWW!!”

But without them how would Hitler have
condemned folk at Dachau
Without them Caesar would have stood alone
They’re the ones who gives their bodies
as weapons to a war
and without them all this killing can’t go on

They’re universal soldiers and they
really are to blame
Their orders come from far away no more
They come from them, and you, and me
and children can’t you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.

“So …”

“Yeah?”

“No soldiers, no war. That it?”

“That’s it.”

“An’ tha boomers b’lieved it?”

“So much so that it was hell to be a soldier back then, I hear tell.”

“So how come, ever’place ya go, ya hear peeps, ‘specially tha boomers, praisin’ tha soldiers ta tha skies, handin’ ’em perks an’ sayin’ thank you fer yer service, huh?”

“B’cause tha boomers an’ otha fancy peeps got stuff an’ can get otha peeps ta die so’s they can keep it. They was pissed ’bout soldiers when it was them who were fixin’ ta be them soldiers an’ die ta protect tha stuff a otha peeps. Now, not so much.”

“But, if no soldiers means no war, then having soldiers means war, huh?”

“Dude. If I got stuff an’ you don’t, there’s gonna be war, sooner or later. Later, if I c’n convince ya that tryin’ ta take my stuff is gonna get ya whacked upside tha head. If’n I c’n do that, an’ ya c’n still get somethin’ outa tha deal somehow, then mebbe them soldiers stay home. But most a tha time, ya don’ get enuff outa tha deal, an’ sooner ‘r later, ya reckon ya got nothin’, so ya got nothin’ ta lose by pickin’ a fight wit’ me, and everythin’ ta gain. Presto. War. Havin’ soldiers is a admission ya got stuff ta protect, and all yer calls fer ‘peace’ are nothin’ more than a ploy to convince peeps ta keep their hands off yer stuff wit’out scrappin’.”

“But that means peace wit’out ever’body havin’ all tha stuff they want can’t last.”

“Yep.”

“That sucks!”

“Ya see many peeps givin’ up stuff so’s more folk c’n have enuff?”

“Um, no, kinda tha opposite.”

“So, put up yer dukes.”

“Now?!?”

“Gotta start sometime. No time like tha present.”