{"id":2770,"date":"2006-05-21T07:01:42","date_gmt":"2006-05-21T14:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/21\/i-didnt-raise-my-son-to-be-a-soldier\/"},"modified":"2006-05-21T08:30:38","modified_gmt":"2006-05-21T15:30:38","slug":"i-didnt-raise-my-son-to-be-a-soldier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/21\/i-didnt-raise-my-son-to-be-a-soldier\/","title":{"rendered":"I Didn’t Raise My Son to Be a Soldier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is an anti-war song<\/a> sent to me from a reader. He says that it was written and sung by the British in protest to that Empire’s wars around the turn of the century. The song was revived for WWI. It then became “Americanized,” and was used to protest the USA being engaged in the WWI.<\/p>\n

Below is the British version of the lyrics. I have linked to an American version of the song with slightly different lyrics.<\/p>\n

I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier
\nI brought him up to be my pride and joy
\nWho dares to put a musket on his shoulder
\nTo shoot another mother’s darling boy
\nWhy should he fight in someone else’s quarrels
\nIt’s time to throw the sword and gun away
\nThere would be no war today
\nIf the nations all would say
\nNo I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier<\/p>\n

I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier
\nTo go fighting in some far-off foreign land
\nHe may get killed before he’s any older
\nFor a cause that he will never understand
\nWhy should he fight another rich man’s battle
\nWhile they stay at home and while their time away
\nLet those with most to lose
\nFight each other if they choose
\nFor I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier<\/p>\n

I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier
\nTo go fighting heathens round the Horn
\nIf God required to prove that boys are bolder
\nThey’d have uniforms and guns when they were born
\nWhy should we have wars about religion
\nWhen Jesus came to teach us not to kill
\nDo Zulus and Hindoos
\nNot have the right to choose
\nFor I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier<\/p>\n

I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier
\nI raised him up to be a gentleman
\nTo find a sweet young girl and love and hold her
\nBring me some grandchildren when they can
\nWhy can’t we decide that the Empire
\nIs just as large as it requires to be
\nAnd I’d rather lose it all
\nThan to see my laddie fall
\nFor I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is an anti-war song sent to me from a reader. He says that it was written and sung by the British in protest to that Empire’s wars around the turn of the century. The song was revived for WWI. It then became “Americanized,” and was used to protest the USA being engaged in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2770"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}