[click on Medal of Honor to play .wav file of the ballad]
Caught in ambush lay a company of riflemen--
Just grenades against machine guns in the gloom--
Caught in ambush till this one of twenty riflemen
Volunteered, volunteered to meet his doom.
It was he who drew the fire of the enemy
That a company of men might live to fight;
And before the deadly fire of the enemy
Stood the man, stood the man we hail tonight.
On the island of New Georgia in the Solomons,
Stands a simple wooden cross alone to tell
That beneath the silent coral of the Solomons,
Sleeps a man, sleeps a man remembered well.
No, they've got no time for glory in the Infantry,
No, they've got no use for praises loudly sung,
But in every soldier's heart in all the Infantry
Shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young.