Unnamed

(Basic Training Poems)

Grady McMurtry

Deep within the pits we sit

And look to where the bullets hit.

That is, I mean, to where they should

The bulls-eye target, not the wood

That frames the circles in the square.

The richochets that part your hair

And sizzle off the parapet

To leave their profiles in the net

Are harmless once they've passed you by—

But never say they didn't try!

(on giving the OD your GO, as written)

Down upon Pier Seventeen

Relief is few and far between

For those who pace the weathered front,

Or so it was one night when Runt,

The Squirrel, was there upon patrol

And wearing out more G.I. sole:

So when the O.D. came his way,

He stopped to pass the time of day.

Have you ever planned a garden?

Hoed it through with minute care

Not a weed or grass root pardon

Track each gopher to his lair?

Trace him to a fresh turned dirt pile

Where you had a stalk of corn

Or a budding bed of myrtle

Standing on the mound, forlorn?

Then begins the merry hunting

As with hose and water (wet)

You drowned out half the neighborhood

And here's the thanks you get.

No recompense for labor,

When he won't be caught he won't

Because, you see, with gophers

Now you have him, now you don't!

Here we have a close up view

Of a draftee in his new

Uniform that is his own,

Tho 'tis not the same as shown

In the stylish fashion plates.

Once he was within the gates

Of the office where supplies

Are given to selected guys,

He discovered that the clothes

They hang on us, by the pose

They assume when they are draped

On his frame, were never shaped

To satisfy a tailor's thought

Of the only way they ought

To look when he is wearing them,

From collar tight to baggy hem

Their three sizes are, to wit;

Too large, too small and doesn't fit!

Once on an inspection morn

There was a sleepy soldier, torn

From downy bunk and slumber land

They led him to his place, to stand

A weary lad. Upon his shoe

There was no shine, nor yet a clue

As how to find the vanished pants;

And so he stood, and so he slants.

It is such sights as this, you see,

That make an officer to be

A trifle gray above the gills;

For all his work, for all the drills,

That this should happen on the day

When they are placed upon display.

Pay days come and pay days go,

But what is there I have to show?

For all the twenty one I earn

There is no part I can discern

To tell me what my ratings are;

One glass of beer upon the bar,

One try at hot licks with the bones

Show no moss grows on rolling stones,

Repay my thoughtful friends who were

So loose with dough, at twenty per,

The PX checks have come and gone

Which leaves me yet more overdrawn

Except for one small bit of change

With which I think to try my range

And sit me to a friendly game

Of cut-throat stud, not quite the same

As never having played at all

For now there is no hope to stall

The truth of that so ancient saying;

"Yardbirds are forever paying!"

We have often heard it said,

And in the papers we have read,

That when Aquatic Park is set

Aside for Army use, they'll let

The soldier boys upon the beach

Where each will rate a gorgeous peach

To wile away a summer's day

With healthy fun and frolic, play

Is good for boys away from home;

This is one beach we'd like to comb!

[11]