If I was a soldier...

I’m not the soldiering sort,
You wouldn’t find me in a fort,
I would not like it on ship,
And I get embarrassed when I strip.
I would not like it in mess hall,
When privates’d jam things in their maw,
Because I don’t like crudity at all,
And I doubt they serve crudite raw.
I would not like being under attack,
I would not like being in Iraq,
Chasing scorpions from my sleeping sack,
And trying to get sand out of my crack.

But when the recruiters came along,
All big and buff and strong,
I have to say I flirted,
With the idea of donning a khaki shirt.
Partly because I was intimidated,
By the enlisting men’s booming voices,
And partly because they intimated,
I was their number one draft pick choice.
“You speak how many languages? Latin, what and French?
Look at those biceps. How much do you bench?
Listen, son, the Airforce is the thinking man’s military branch,
And way up high there’s a far lower chance of buying the ranch.”
“Don’t listen to him. A cultured man like you!
Join the Navy and you’ll see the world too.”
“Thanks I already saw it with my parents.”
Partly true but really I’m fishing for compliments.
“You’re strong AND smart! Just what the army needs!
And you’ll get medals for all your deeds!”
“Just like Cub Scouts,” I said,
“Exactly,” and all three nod their heads.
The Coast Guard and Marines,
Were nowhere to be seen.
The Coast Guard,
Probably doesn’t recruit that hard,
And I guess the Marines were smart enough to know,
Not to come and offer me their praise,
Because no-one dumb enough for them would ever show,
At any Harvard recruiting day.
Suddenly the other three have applications in their fists,
And complimentary pens that I can keep if I enlist.
So I smile, mutter something about flat feet,
And they yell after me, “You have a beautiful retreat!”

But there’s a part of me that wants to sign those forms,
To have fixed values. To have fixed norms.
To look so clean in my military press,
To fuck the prom queen in her dress.
To have my men and order them about,
To scream and march, parade and shout.
To miss a bullet by a hair’s breadth,
To take my men and order them to their deaths.
To have the glory and feel the esprit de corps,
And be certain there can be no freedom without war.
To always know what’s right and wrong,
And get teary for the old corp’s songs.
And having risen to the highest rank,
To be placed in a mausoleum large, cold and dank.

But service is a double-edged sword,
And I wouldn’t like following someone else’s word.
I hate to make my bed,
And I don’t like the idea of being dead.
I don’t like getting beat,
And I can’t stand cream of wheat.
I wouldn’t like sleeping in a pit.
I can’t stand people who are full of shit.
I’d never be top brass,
Because I’m crap at kissing ass.

I’d be some low ranking officer,
Entitled by education to be there.
My unit would be a total disgrace,
My medals would be out of place.
I’d run the illegal poker game,
And scratch the er from Sgt Pricker’s name.
I’d be the guy for contraband,
Selling army rations to the natives of the land.
I’d be staff HQ’s little hellion,
Running his own pointless rebellion.
And every chance that I’d get,
I’d write dissenting poems for the hometown gazette.
But nobody would care,
And I’d think it unfair,
That you can quit a job and leave a wife,
But the military is with you for life.

So if they enact the draft,
And I have no choice but to serve,
Even though it seems daft,
Don’t give me the burial I deserve.
No folded flags and bugle calls,
Don’t give me hushed church stalls,
Don’t pin my medals on my chest,
Just follow this my last request:

When heroes fall in death we raise them up again,
To take their palls and cloak as kings those who once were men,
Their death around protecting what we thought they were in life,
Till we are bound unto their glory which we repeat as strife.

So if I should fall,
Leave my body where it lays,
Lie it there without a pall,
My face buried in the clay,
Unmourned, unrembered, unglorfied,
Nothing but a corpse...cold and dead.