BROTHERS IN ARMS
Lads from the suburbs, lads from the slums,
Poor boys and chaps with mouths full of plums.
Boys from the cities, boys from the farms…
Dress em’ in green and they’re Brothers in Arms.
Men with diplomas and men with degrees,
Boys who left school with no GCEs.
Men of distinction, men from the Dole,
They’re Brothers in Arms from the day they enrol.
Men from the North and boys from the South,
Those born with a silver spoon in their mouth
Those who were dragged up and had Bugger All…
Brothers in Arms when they’re backed to the wall.
Brawlers, smokers, gamblers and drinkers,
Scholars, academics and thinkers.
The opinionated and those on the fence…
Brothers in Arms when they’re sharing a trench.
The hard as nails and the meek as lambs,
The ‘live-by-the-rules’ and the ‘don’t-give-a-damns’
Defiant rebels and those who conform…
Brothers in Arms in a uniform.
Shy boys, wide-boys, straight men and wags,
Doctor Martens and Oxford bags.
Manicured nails and calloused palms…
The day they enlist they are Brothers in Arms.
The casually dressed and the smartly apparelled,
The common-of-name and the double-barrelled;
Bloggs and Henderson-Farquhar…
Brothers in Arms when they’re stood at the bar.
Page Three voyeurs and Telegraph Readers,
Handsome ‘Divils’ and Ugly Bleeders.
The ‘daft-as-brushes’, the erudite,
Brothers in Arms at the heart of the fight.
Those that follow and those that lead,
Those who aid and those who impede.
The loners and those that cling tight to the bunch…
Brothers in Arms when it comes to the crunch.
The ‘sit-back-and-watchers’ the ‘movers-and-shakers’
The natural born killers, the bluffers & fakers.
The ‘up-for-the-fight’ and the ‘heavy-at-heart’…
Brothers in Arms when hostilities start.
The Homeboy, the Ex-Pat
From Hattersley to Medicine Hat.
From the Straits of Gibraltar to the White Cliffs of Dover,
Brothers in Arms the world over.
As years go by and life moves on,
They’ll leave their comrades one by one.
To return to the cities, the towns and the farms,
But they’ll never forget their Brothers in Arms.
~
Copyright©Mac McFadden 2009
