I ran home from school and threw my books on the table

And I turned on the TV, it was those days before cable 

Got the national news on channels 3, 5 and 10

And I got home just in time to watch the numbers roll in



We got the body count from a conflict, not a war

We got the body count every afternoon at four,

(1,2,3,4!)



We had Richard M. Nixon, 1968 and my parents both agreed that our future looked great

But the number's getting bigger every night on my screen

And the median age of each corpse was 19



They were the body count from a conflict, not a war

We got the body count every afternoon at four

(1,2,3,4!)



You think things are bad now, well they've always been scared that kids have guns

Well we issued them then

Dead at 19 from an east LA slum his choice was war or college he was poor, not dumb



He was the body count, every afternoon at four

He was the body count, from the Vietnam war.