"Those Brass-Button Queens"

MARINES

The fighting ability of the U.S. Marines is never questioned. But sometimes soldiers and sailors are irked by the signs of conscious superiority inherent in every Marine. In Gismo (meaning "gadget"), a publication for all servicemen in the South Pacific, this pent-up irritation was let out in doggerel "believed to be by a sailor":

The Marines, the Marines, those blasted Gyrenes*

Those seagoing bellhops, those brass-button queens.

Oh! They pat their own backs, write stories in reams,

All in praise of themselves--the U.S. Marines!

The Marines, the Marines, those publicity fiends,

They built all the forests, turned on all the streams,

Discontent with the earth, they say Heaven's scenes

Are guarded by--you guess! Right! U.S. Marines!

The moon never beams, except when the Marines

Give it permission to turn on its gleams.

And the tide never rises, the wind never screams--

Unless authorized by the U.S. Marines.

The Marines, the Marines, in their khakies and greens,

Their pretty blue panties, red stripes down their seams.

They thought all the thoughts, dreamed

in their dreams,

Singing, "The Song of Myself--the U.S. Marines.

* "Gyrene" is Marine's own word for Marine."

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