WHITE-4 ROMEO Original song [Intro — spoken over radio static] White-4 Romeo, radio check. Task Force Falcon, Diyala Province. Twenty-nine August, two thousand seven. Some transmissions never end. [Verse 1] I was twenty years old when they handed me the night, Bravo gun up front beneath a sky without a light. Alpha held the other two-forty, brother on my flank, Rotor wash and diesel smoke, sweat running through our plates. Two-fifty missions underneath those spinning blades, Black Hawks and Chinooks carrying boys into the haze. Two to five beyond the wire, batteries on my spine, Body bags beside the ammo—both counted every time. White-4 Romeo, keeping Sergeant Makita tied To every voice across the net and every man outside. No assistant gunner with me, no nine upon my side, Just a belt-fed and a radio—and orders to survive. [Pre-Chorus] People say the war is over When the airplane brings you home. But nobody tells the soldier That the war comes with him, too. [Chorus] I’m still White-4 Romeo when the whole house goes dark, Still searching every window, still listening for the start. But I’ve got three kids calling, “Daddy, come back inside,” And Charlie plants his body there and will not leave my side. I’ve lost men, years, and pieces I can never make appear, But Evelynn, Amelia, Maverick still need their father here. So when that old transmission says it’s time to disappear, Charlie breaks the signal— And my family pulls me near. [Verse 2] Three or four that morning, twenty-ninth of August came, Diyala River Valley, darkness swallowing our names. Captain Foster hit the ground; the whole world narrowed down, Alpha dragged his body toward the medevac outbound. He carried him from battle while the mission carried on, Then Foster took his Angel Flight before the coming dawn. There are things two gunners witnessed that no history book can hold, And there are nights we’re twenty-one although we’ve both grown old. Eleven empty places; fifty wounded wearing scars, Christmas Eve inside a Chinook underneath indifferent stars. Seventy-two without the sleep, one-forty-eight pounds thin, Then I brought the war back home and tried to drown it from within. [Pre-Chorus] People call it self-destruction; I was trying to kill the sound. Every bottle, every substance Only drove me further down. [Chorus] I’m still White-4 Romeo when the whole house goes dark, Still searching every window, still listening for the start. But I’ve got three kids calling, “Daddy, come back inside,” And Charlie plants his body there and will not leave my side. I’ve lost men, years, and pieces I can never make appear, But Evelynn, Amelia, Maverick still need their father here. So when that old transmission says it’s time to disappear, Charlie breaks the signal— And my family pulls me near. [Verse 3] I came home wearing medals, but the uniform concealed The part of me still bleeding from a wound that never healed. An ARCOM bearing valor cannot make the nightmares cease; Another Oak Leaf on my chest could never purchase peace. I fought pills and meth and liquor; I went hand-to-hand with hell, Locked inside withdrawal with no way out except myself. Sandy was my baseline when my compass wouldn’t hold, While our children gave me reasons to keep moving through the cold. Then Bill left at six-thirty-four, my hand still holding his, Another father taken, another world no longer his. Now I hear him through the silence whenever darkness fills: “Watch the windows, keep her running—within reason, Erik. Still.” [Bridge — stripped down] Charlie heard me breaking from three rooms away. Broke the rules and climbed beside me anyway. Put his head beneath my arm and made me breathe again— No rifle, no radio, just my four-legged friend. Sometimes I walk Charlie. Sometimes Charlie walks me. Sometimes he stands between the man I was And the man my children need. Tail up—mission capable. Eyes forward—hold the line. He doesn’t need to understand the war To know when it finds mine. [Final Chorus — full instrumentation] I’m still White-4 Romeo, but I’m answering tonight, Not from somewhere back in Iraq—from my children’s porch light. Sandy and the kids are home; Charlie’s standing by, And I owe the living everything I promised those who died. I carry Captain Foster and the brothers left behind, Every nighttime aircraft and each name carved in my mind. But survival isn’t cowardice, and love is not retreat— I’m still here, still fighting, still refusing my defeat. White-4 Romeo— Transmission coming through: The war may live inside me, But it doesn’t own me, too. [Outro — spoken] White-4 Romeo. Three children accounted for. Charlie on security. Family holding the perimeter. No shots fired. No bridges burned. Mission discipline maintained. Still here. Over.
