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Sapper's Lullaby

from Dust of Uruzgan by Fred Smith

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about

My job in Uruzgan was to talk to provincial officials and tribal chiefs to encourage them to cooperate with us and, as much as possible, with each other. This meant getting out beyond the wire, which I couldn’t have done without the protection and mobility provided by the Drivers, Gunners and Sappers (combat engineers). I had a particular respect for the Sappers whose role was to travel out the front of the patrol looking forward through the dust and debris for anything that could be an IED, and if they found one, to deal with it.
I was working in my office at 11:15am on 7 June 2010, when I heard someone up the corridor call out “two category A’s!”. Shortly afterwards, the welfare phone lines and internet were cut. This is one of the first things that happens on the Multinational Base in Tarin Kowt when a soldier gets wounded or killed, and often the first you know about it. It’s done to enable the Commanding Officer to contact the families before they find out through the media. The soldier’s body gets flown back to the main base and placed in the morgue in the Role 2 Medical Facility. His mates post a vigil – a guard of honor – outside the morgue day and night for two or three days while arrangements are made for repatriation. A memorial service is held followed by a Ramp Ceremony at which everyone on base lines the road out to the flight line, saluting as the casket passes.
The northern summer of 2010 was particularly tough in Uruzgan. We lost 10 men in three months. Snowy and Smithy were the first to go on that June morning, killed by an IED while leading a patrol in the Mirabad Valley. I wrote this song the next day and we played it at a concert in the Poppy’s barbecue area on 11 June.

lyrics

Up past the Role 2, and down through the gate, out to the flight line. We stood in the sun, slouch hat and gun, as two caskets passed us by. And followed the Padre, onto the ‘Herc’, and out into the pale summer sky. We walked back to Poppy’s, then went back to work, with the dust still in our eyes.

So soldiers, sing me, a Sapper’s lullaby
You give it your all, knowing if you should fall That all good things must die
These young engineers, whose job is to clear, the roads that we may pass. They’re always out front, and when they bear the brunt, it happens fast.
Sapper D. Smith had a wife and a son, the apple of his eye. Snowy Moerland was just 21, way too young to die.

So go call your mother, call your old man, on that welfare line. Tell them you love them, while you still can, ‘cause all good things must die.

credits

from Dust of Uruzgan, released August 30, 2020

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Fred Smith Canberra, Australia

“Fred Smith is simply the best folk/country musician working in this country in 2020. Beyond writing some of the finest songs about Australians at war, he has created a repertoire that is wry, literate, witty, powerfully emotional and insightful.”(Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald). ... more

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