Universal Soldier

A few months back I posted a song by Bob Rafkin titled "I Am Humanity". The lyrics contained the phrase "a universal soldier, sword raised in my hand". Recently a favorite band of mine did a cover of a song called "Universal Soldier", which I believe to be the source for Rafkin's quoted phrase.

Lyrics (updated from original source, Buffy Sainte-Marie):

He's five foot two,

And he's six feet four,

He fights with missiles and with spears.

He's all of thirty-one

And he's only seventeen,

He's been a soldier for a thousand years...

He's a Christian, a Hindu

An atheist, a Jain..

A Buddhist and a Muslim and a Jew.

And he knows he shouldn't kill,

And he knows he always will --

Kill you for me, my friend, and me for you...

And he's fighting for Palestine,

He's fighting for Israel..

And he's fighting for the USA.

And he's fighting for the Russians,

And he's fighting for Iraq --

And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.

He's fighting for democracy,

He's fighting for his soil

He says it's for the peace of all.

He's the one who must decide

Who's to live and who's to die --

And he never sees the writing on the wall.

But without him, how would Hitler

Have condemned him at Dachau,

Without him Caesar would have stood alone.

He's the one who gives his body as a weapon of the war,

And without him all this killing can't go on.

No, no...

He's the universal soldier,

And he really is to blame.

His order comes from far away no more --

They come from here and there and you and me,

And brother -- can't you see?

This is not the way we put an end to war.

No, no...