Five Two One
(521 Australian servicemen were killed in
the Vietnam War. Menzies = Australian
leader, septic tanks = "yanks",
Queensberry = fair, as in the rules of
boxing, bonzer = good)
I'm Billy Bohane from Castlemaine -
it's an Irish name, and rhymes with "pain".
I was laying the planks of my own life, thanks,
when Menzies crawled to the septic tanks.
It was sixty-nine and I was doing fine,
eighteen years old when I got told
that Uncle Sam was in a jam,
and Aussies were needed in Vietnam.
I've got no fight with the Queen's Own Light,
if you've got the nerve and you want to serve.
You're a volunteer, you drank their beer,
and I don't say it's dinkum,
but you mustn't whinge if your **** gets singed -
you signed just fine on that dotted line,
and wined and dined on government income.
But to take a lad, neither bent nor bad,
teach him to shoot in hobnail boots,
put a slouch hat on his head,
drop him in a bog with a bunch of nogs,
with a fair chance he'll get dead -
doesn't seem to me quite Queensberry,
but I was sent, and I went, and I bled.
We saw through the septic screw,
we knew it wouldn't wash.
"Can Do, Can Do" – even Mister Magoo
could've seen through all that tosh.
If you've got it clear, and you've got the gear,
then train 'em and insert 'em.
Don't treat the nogs like whipping dogs -
if you can't help, don't hurt 'em.
A nog just wants his local haunts,
ancestral graves around him.
Don't make him till some muddy hill
that fills your bill, against his will -
just leave him where you found him.
And after all, when time was called,
we all packed up to leave.
The last to go, blowed if I know -
was anything achieved?
So, five-two-one is chiseled on
some monument, somewhere.
Sometimes the Queen and blokes in green
lay wreaths around the square.
What was the cost? Australia lost
her bravest and her best.
If you can tell me why they fell,
then bonzer - be my guest!
Five hundred sons and twenty-one
missed out on many a beer.
Those decent boys never enjoyed
their promised span of years.
Five hundred yachts left all in knots,
and scratching round for crew,
five hundred girls hear pipers skirl
for boys they never knew.
Five hundred songs limp on too long
at sombre barbecues.
The ghostly wheeze of indigo trees
reminds me of young families ...
the ones who never grew.
Copyright © Michael Coy | Year Posted 2017
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