(Soft Acoustic Intro – distant airfield ambience, warm electric swells) Funny thing about getting older… You start seeing nineteen-year-olds for what they really are Kids. (Verse 1) Back then we thought we knew everything Standing tall in those uniforms Talking tough on smoke breaks Like the world had already made us men We laughed through exhaustion Complained about chow every night Acted invincible under runway lights Like nothing in this world could touch us We were young enough to joke through danger Too young to understand fear And nobody had to tell us we were boys Cause back then we were trying so damn hard To become something bigger than ourselves (Pre-Chorus) Now I look back at old photographs And all I see are kids pretending not to be scared (Chorus) We saluted like men But we were still boys Barely old enough to know who we were Making life-and-death noise Laughing loud through sleepless nights Trying to act fearless and strong And somewhere between those long deployments We grew old before we should’ve But back then… We were still boys (Verse 2) Now I see young troops boarding planes Duffel bags dragging behind And man… they look so young these days Like somebody’s sons still figuring out life And I wonder if they know How fast the years disappear How some faces stay frozen in memory While the rest of us grow gray here Cause some of those boys came home different Some never made it back at all And some still live forever twenty years old Inside the minds of the men who survived them (Pre-Chorus) Funny how age changes memory Without changing the ache underneath it (Chorus) We saluted like men But we were still boys Young enough to laugh at stupid things Before understanding loss Sharing cigarettes and bad coffee Talking big beneath the stars Never realizing life was changing us Every second we stood there together (Bridge – stripped down/emotional) And maybe that’s why veterans reconnect so fast Because no matter how old we get Part of us still sees the others Exactly as they were back then Young Loud Fearless And alive (Slow emotional build – warm steel guitar/piano) And every reunion feels strange somehow Wrinkles, gray hair, slower walks But then somebody tells an old story And suddenly we’re nineteen again (Final Chorus – emotional lift) Yeah we saluted like men But we were still boys Trying to carry responsibilities Most kids should never know And if I could go back one more time I’d probably tell those young fools this: Hold onto each other tightly Cause someday these memories Will become some of the most important things you have left (Outro – distant runway ambience fade) And God… We really were just boys. (fade)
