what’s that song you are humming, sounds like something i should know, he answered ”midnight rider” and i said ”yeah i thought so”

”i saw them at the Fillmore i suppose i was around eighteen and there have been a lot of miles and faces since then, but that is still the best concert i have ever seen……………..funny how you remember things and the impression that they make, just seem to hang around like an old dog on a porch……………………then i remember getting on a plane to go kill people i never knew, they had never done nothing to me, but they told me that’s what i had to do………………………………..so we came into this village and we were looking for these men and a little boy came running out and when he got close they exploded the bomb on his back, killing him, and my best friend……………………now i wanted to hate that little boy but he was doing the same as me, killing people he never met, cause they told him that’s what he should do…………………………..he didn’t even know what he was doing, just exactly like me

so the guys in the platoon gave me a bunch of grief when i took a foxhole shovel and begin to dig his grave, but i kept digging and somehow manage to say this kid never had a chance to see life any other way, and you can stand there and hate him but what if this were your son and your government said they were going to use him and he’s lying here on the ground…………most of them walked away but a few helped me finish the hole and i gathered him up the best i could and laid him in the ground

that night my Captain said that was the bravest thing he had ever seen and i looked up at him and said, no the kid has got me beat………………………………………so i never have forgotten him and when i get enough to buy a drink, me and that little kid ride off into the night………………………

his name is Ben

never diminish a man or woman, until you walk in their shoes  forgive me Ben

not gonna let them catch, the midnight rider