Courtesy of USCG
Have you thanked a service member today?
This poem is about what it means to be a member of the Earth’s premier life saving service. And the Coast Guard pulls that off while conducting SIX other primary missions to boot! It is really rather quietly impressive. So I offer a tribute up to the men and women in blue.
*****
The Coasties Anthem
By Byron Gordon
They say that pride is evil, that it will see us dead,
But for all of their preaching, it puts a smile in my head,
And yes we may be cocky, say we don’t give a damn:
That’s the front you gotta play when you work for Uncle Sam.
We all know of sacrifice, we all know hardship’s heart
Birthdays, weddings, holidays missed and yet we do our part.
We fall apart from fam’ly and form a new-knit clan
Of those who would, who wish to go, but can’t keep to a plan.
‘Cause they have a calling, a duty pulls them away
To where the Chief’s are bawling orders to get underway.
And for those who stay ashore, it’s not all cup o’ tea
Many a day we work all night pulling lives out of the sea.
For far to little pay some say, for far to much say others,
The truth is that those who stay, they stay here for their brothers.
Though they will deny it and say it’s all about the gold,
All their futures forfeit, for it’s the Job that’s got ahold.
The Job drives us from our health and keeps us from our homes,
It drags us to the boat station and to the aerodromes,
All for the slimmest chance to save another man’s life
And pull him safely from the sea, Posideon’s salty knife.
Call us rogues and scoundrels, aye that may be very true.
We’re no saints, that is for sure, we love a nightly brew.
But we do something noble and that’s why we will always be
Forever Semper Paratus, from sea to shining sea.
