They must be shielded well from woe and kept secure from care,
And if we could, upon our backs, their burdens we would bear.
And so once more we rise to-day to face the battle zone
That those who follow us may know the Flag that we have known.
Your dream and my dream is not that we shall live;
The greatest joys we hope to claim are those that we shall give.
We face the heat and strife of life, its battle and its toil
That those who follow us may know the best of freedom's soil.
And if we knew that by our death we'd keep that flag on high,
For your boy and my boy, how gladly we would die.