Bonus

[Mark in Rochester]

written while serving in the 511th PIR, 11th Airborne

Down here there are no Ten Commandments
And a man can raise a thirst;
Here live the outcasts of Civilization,
Life’s Victims at their worst.

Down the steaming Guinea coast
Live the men that God forgot,
Battling the ever present fever,
The itch and the tropical rot.

Living with the natives,
Down in the sweltering zone,
Rooting like hogs in a wallow,
Ten thousand miles from home.

Nobody knows we’re living,
Nobody gives a damn;
Back home we’re soon forgotten—
We soldiers of Uncle Sam.

Drenched with sweat in the evenings
We stew in foxholes and dream,
Killing ourselves with alkie
To dam up memory’s stream.

At night we lie on our pillows
With ills no doctor can cure.
Hell no, we’re not convicts,
Just soldiers on a tour.

We have but one consolation,
And that to you I shall tell,
When we die we’ll all go to heaven,
Because we’ve done our hitch in hell.