Give Me Better Death

It used to take armies
Big battalions of men
Armored like Goliath
It used to take armies
To hold a people ransom

It used to take heroes
Men in service to country
Involved with the heroes across
Each true to own patriotism
Each true to own dame back home

Now it takes bandits
Cowards, sociopaths, insane
They that kill for the heck of it
Too short on courage or imagination
To fight like heroes across a trench

Lord, I know, die I must
But pray give me better death
Not death at a coward's hand
A hand too small for a square fist fight
That's much too small a death