Tried every possible combination of BEGIN, SET, DECLARE, etc. - with no results.

My goal is to declare and set a variable - a date - and then run SELECT statement where that variable would be referenced a few times.

Tried everything - no go. This is why I started thinking that perhaps it is a driver used to connect. The driver is iSeries ODBC driver for Windows and the editor I am using is Toad for Data Analysts (although that part is I am sure inconsequential).

Would appreciate any and all ideas/suggestions/etc.

Here are a few of the errors:
Error 2/16/2011 9:04:35 AM 0:00:00.046 [IBM][iSeries Access ODBC Driver][DB2 UDB]SQL0199 - Keyword SQL not expected. Valid tokens: DECLARE. 55 0
Error 2/16/2011 9:05:00 AM 0:00:00.062 [IBM][iSeries Access ODBC Driver][DB2 UDB]SQL0199 - Keyword SELECT not expected. Valid tokens: <END-OF-STATEMENT>. 55 0
Error 2/16/2011 9:05:13 AM 0:00:00.062 [IBM][iSeries Access ODBC Driver][DB2 UDB]SQL0104 - Token ; was not valid. Valid tokens: <END-OF-STATEMENT>. 55 0
Error 2/16/2011 9:17:15 AM 0:00:00.046 [IBM][iSeries Access ODBC Driver][DB2 UDB]SQL0199 - Keyword SELECT not expected. Valid tokens: <END-OF-STATEMENT>. 55 0
Error 2/16/2011 9:17:32 AM 0:00:00.109 [IBM][iSeries Access ODBC Driver][DB2 UDB]SQL0084 - SQL statement not allowed. 55 0

My database says OS/400 5.4.0 (from the db2connect output).
What I would like to do is something very basic, e.g.:

BEGIN
select current date from sysibm.sysdummy1;
END;

which gives me the following:
Category Timestamp Duration Message Line Position
Error 2/16/2011 10:26:25 PM 0:00:01.234 [IBM][iSeries Access ODBC Driver][DB2 UDB]SQL0199 - Keyword SELECT not expected. Valid tokens: DECLARE. 66 0

Compound SQL is subject to the same rules as SQL in stored procedures. In particular, you have to return the query result into something: SELECT CURRENT DATE INTO MYVAR_DATE FROM...

Also, a compound statement does not end with a semicolon.

My bad - I should not have used the word COMPOUND. What I was trying to do is to find a way to pass a variable to the SELECT statement - not INTO...

BEGIN ATOMIC
DECLARE zz INTEGER;
SET zz = 1110217;
SELECT * FROM table5 WHERE table5.field5 = zz;
END

to which it replies
SQL0104 - Token ATOMIC was not valid. Valid tokens: DECLARE.