Ode to Professor Claymore | By J-Bone
This is a ditty about one of the Infantryman's best friends and worst nightmare. It just depends on which side your standing on when the lessons begin. I dedicate it to every soldier that has occupied a foxhole with a fixed bayonet while they wait.....
Professor Claymore
Yes class will be in session soon
Here on the hill with the light of no moon
Yes time to prepare, to bloody prepare,
The skulls full of mush will soon be here
I set up the dais
With cool readiness it goes
To count how many times
Would take all fingers and toes;
Here I place the professor,
Down the crest of the hill;
Well front of the wire
His classroom is prepped
Fifty meters wide at the back;
Another fifty deep
A fan shaped placement
They won’t need seats.
Prof he does smile
if you look from the front and above
till his class it is ready
Then looks to me like a frown.
Class room assistants
Bouncing Betty and Toe-popper
Ensure the class enters through
Wide Open doors
His Adjunct professor
My good friend Trip Flare
Signals to Professor Claymore
They are funneling in.
And just as his students
The auditorium does fill
He begins with the Lessons
No time to stand still!
The lessons they are of Double Ought Buck
Delivered with C 4, the lessons are blunt
They sear through your brain
Turn your body to mush,
.
800 lessons of death he spreads
He speaks only once
But his lessons they learn
Yes they learn all at once.
They receive them with pain.
Those in the Front rows
Pass the lessons to the back…
You can fit what’s left of them
In a single Rucksack.
Row three and row four
Learned their lessons too,
Five or six pieces per body bag
And sometimes their shoes.
The rows farther behind
take the lessons away
By the time they receive them
The size of a quarter.
The lessons they slice and they dice,
many pieces away;
A lifetime reminder of Class that day.
Memories may fade a little
But they’ll n’er go away.
Throughout today’s class
With M2 pointer the Prof I assist
Delivering 50 cal reminders
to those who persist.
One or two to the right
Three or four to the Left
“Take another step here and
The lesson is death!”
The Professor his First name is M eighteen,
middle initial Aone.
His last it is Claymore,
Speaks once and he’s done.
But fear not my friends
Though I miss him a lot
There are seven more of his friends
Found in every box!
J-Bone
