4th Place | “21 At Normandy”

4th Place

MATTHEW HOGGATT
GAUTIER, MISSISSIPPI
“21 AT NORMANDY”
WWW.AMERICANSONGSPACE.COM/MATTHOGGATT

Well I heard him crying out for God
In his favorite rocking chair
On a Sunday afternoon
When all the family was there
He’d been sleeping like a baby
The way that old folks do
When he had a dream that woke him up
That he wished had not been true

He was walking up a hillside
With a kid from Arkansas
When they started taking mortar rounds
He watched his buddies fall
There was no time to ask for cover fire
It was all that he could do
To dig in deep, stay down low
And pray to God he’d make it through

CHORUS:

‘Cause he turned 21 at Normandy
With a rifle in his hand
No birthday card form Mama
Just bullets blood and sand
Yeah he came home with some medals
And a little shrapnel in his hand
21 at Normandy
What a way to make a man

Granddaddy kept on fighting
Long after he got home
Found comfort in the bottle
More than grandma would let on
On the day they had my Daddy
He said the fight in him was through
But he fought that war when the lights went out
And the dreams came seeping through.

REPEAT CHORUS

No he never talked about it much
It was all too much to understand
21 at Normandy
What a way to make a man