Christmas In A Foreign Land

So where were our leaders while we fell in the fields,
As we spilled our guts for glory and a rusty piece of tin?
They were sat in their easy chairs, smoking fat cigars,
Dictating their memoirs for the paper's first edition.

And the papers reported our wonderful victory,
How we pushed back the enemy the whole of ten meters,
And we only lost two hundred thousand men today,
If we keep this up, we'll all be dead for Christmas.

And the jingle bells will peel their mighty psalm,
As our Santa Claus flies over us on this Christmas morn,
While we huddle in the foxholes of a foreign land,
No football games for us under his barrage of bombs.

His pixies aren't friendly with their sniper-sight rifles,
And their roadside booby traps to slow our advance,
From their forest of Christmas trees they fire on our patrols,
With the fairy-light tracers that rip through our limbs.

Spilled blood glistens like tinsel in the winter sun,
Casualties wail their agonized carols before they die,
Our present is a bullet wrapped in lead ribbons,
There is no good will to all men in our Christmastime.

Oh let me home for Christmas that I may see my family one last time,
I only ask this one favor, that I can say my last goodbye,
Then send me back to the battlefield and I will fight again,
And I will roar our cause to the enemy and make my sacrifice.

And all you fat cat leaders can champagne toast my bravery,
And take the credit with a smile hid behind your solemn mask,
And send a letter to my kin pretending that you're sorry,
And break another promise to have the boys back home for Christmas.