Every once and a while I come up with a poem or find some poems I want to share. This page will serve as a repository of them.
Folding Doors are not Mismatched
This is a poem that I came up with as I was taking some Farsi classes away from my wife for a Summer at the University of Maryland.
Folding Doors are not Mismatched
Same wood. Same paint. Same design.
Made together, for each other.
Strong. Solid.
Folding doors, apart during the day, yet always near.
They see the world that separates them.
Evening settles and they are reunited.
Doors of equal.
Strong. Solid.
Folding Doors are not Mismatched
557th Signal Depot Company
The signal depot company was responsible for maintaining, repairing, and managing the signal corps equipment for a division. I’m not sure what division the 557th Signal Company was a part of. However, it seemed likely it was sent to the Pacific for a very brief amount of time.
Technical Sgt T/5 Bernard Stein composed this poem at the end of WW2. Reproduced below –
27 August 1945
A history (rough but right) of the 557th Signal Depot co., written for the boys by one of the boys.
0R APROPOETRY
By T/5 Bernard Stein.
On the first of April, year forty-four, There was born a group in tho Signal Corps.
The 557th was its name,
To run a depot, was to be its game.
A little, tough man by the name of Knight Was the officer chosen to show it the light.
He bellowed and blustered, but gave the group “sock”, Then, one fine day, he was replaced by Block.
This new Captain , who had come to the fore , Didn’t appear to know the whole score.
But the men he chose were an excellent lot; For this you’ll see later, a Majority he got.
It was in Camp Maxey, in that great Texas land, That this fine groups made its first stand.
They soldiered and studied and practised and sweat, TIll an “Excellent”, in ITP, they did get.
In that camp, they moved quite a bit, Till, It seemed, they’d cleaned every part of it. On 2 December, they did finally go
To Fort Sam Houston, near San Antonio.
There they worked in the depot; They lived very well; of their many good deals, the boys still do tell. Some even married, and their brides are there yet, While many still write to the gals, they there met.
None will forget the “Twin Palms”, cross the way,
It was “Don’t Fence Me In” and “Rum and Coke” every day. Each day at the depot,
they worked “racking up”
At night, the boys took off and tried “shacking up”
Then the Captain and some boys went off to schools, While the rest of Repair dept. [not sure if this is right]. displaying its tools. The boys then returned, a little bit sager,
But the Captain, Oh Glory, returned as a Major.
On 27 March, Fort Sam they did leave;
There was nary a man who did not grieve.
Their first impression of their new camp, Bowie, caused the boys, to cry aloud, “Phooie”.
Soon out in the field, the boys had to go
and those three weeks of bivouac moved, Oh, so slow. But again the men showed, what fine men they be, Because they got an “Excellent” on the UTP.
Soon after, the Major, at a formation one day, Stunned the boys when they heard them say,
“Now that the officers have seen you through-” That was a statement most untrue.
But the men laughed it off and got ready
then, For POE at a camp. named Stoneman.
On the 7th of June they hit the rail
lnto sunny Cal. they blazed a trail.
There they were greeted with shots in the arm.
So that many diseases could do them no harm.
But “short arm”inspections was what kept the boys stoppin, Till they believed that was our “secret weapon”.
Censorship came and the letters grew colder,
For you can’t emote, who they’re at your shoulder.
The censor, bescissored, roads what you write,
But the warm thoughts of home were there day and night.
Came the 15th of June, they marched to the pier,
The boys sounded merry, but some must have felt fear. The boat “Catalina”, took them to Frisco that day,
Then they boarded the “Mormacwren” and were on the way.
To remain at home it was now too late,
For they’d already passed under the Golden Gate.
But the lament of the “lame” still rose hopefully, “They’ll never pass me through POE”.
So off they sailed on the big blue sea Further and further from the land of liberty. The ship was
crowded and holds were hot, For 53 days they were a miserable lot.
If permission is granted to add chronology, Here are the stops they made at sea.
Pearl Harbor June 21
Eniwotok June 30
Ulithi July 5
Loyto July 9
Manila Bay July 15
On the 19th of July, an LCM came portside;
The men scrambled in for a short but rough ride.
They landed, then drove thru tho badly wrecked town, And in a depot, in tents, settled down.
For a while it looked like the unit would split,
As grabs were made for different part of it .
Meanwhile, the men, who they could, went out sight seeing , And even found bones of Japs who’d failed fleeing.
Then an assignment came through for them,
On 30 July they railed from Base X to M.
From AP0 75 to 70 they went
To perform the mission for which they were sent.
The duties they got were certainly clear,
For hadn’t they trained for more than a year? But alas, to work the Major couldn’t
for he was ordered to stay as just the C.O.
But just as the boys , their jobs began tending , The war most suddenly came to an ending.
Now the boys once more want to roam,
But this time, please God, let it be home
ANY QUESTIONS??
ODE TO A DEAR DEPARTED ITEM OF EQUIPMENT
Sergeant, dear Sergeant, great trouble besets me,
To travail at last I must yield.
Make your statement of cost, for I fear I have lost
My strap, carrying, bag, canvas, field.
Some dastard in o.d. has sabotaged me;
My just ire cannot be concealed.
He has taken to flight in the dead of the night
With my strap, carrying, bag, canvas, field.
I would rather be taken a prisoner at Makin
Or be flayed ’til my life’s blod congealed,
Or go months without shoes than surrender or lose
My strap, carrying, bag, canvas, field.
Wherever we’d go, in the rain, sleet, or snow,
And in exhaustion I staggered and reeled,
Cross my shoulder ’twould ride, with the bag at my side—
My strap, carrying, bag, canvas, field.
Heavy burdens I’ve carried, but never have tarried
And my weariness was never revealed.
Oh, I’ll never forget my bag, canvas, musette
And my strap, carrying, bag, canvas, field.
Now the bounties of Fate cannot expiate
My sorrow, for someone has stealed—
And my blood it does curdle—my GI web girdle,
That strap, carrying, bag, canvas, field.
Make your Statement of Charges, I’ll pay out the largesse,
My Sergeant, for I am well-heeled.
But in anguish I sigh with a tear in my eye
—For my strap, carrying, bag, canvas, field.
In the Army’s Standard Nomenclature Lists, equipment and materiel were itemized for accounting and record-keeping. The item designations, usually descriptively detailed, often came up with perplexing names.
