MIKE DILLON, DOUGHBOY LIEUT. JOHN PIERRE ROCHE
Reading edition
From Lieutenant Roche’s book of poems, “Rimes in Olive Drab.” Robert M. McBride & Company, Publishers, New York. Copyright, 1918. Special permission to insert in this book.
“Doughboy” is an old nickname for a United States infantryman. When our army went into what is now New Mexico, Arizona and California to quiet the Mexicans hostilities that preceded the war of 1846, the infantry fell into a way of camping in houses built by the natives with sun-dried bricks of adobé mud. The cavalry, having to lie in the open with the horses, were joked thereat and came back by calling the infantry dobie boys. The name stuck and by an easy slide arrived at the present form.
MIKE Dillon was a doughboy And wore the issue stuff; He wasn’t much to look at— In fact, was rather rough; He served his time as rookie— At drilling in the sun, And cleared a lot of timber And polished up his gun. Mike Dillon was a private With all the word entails; He cussed and chewed tobacco And overlooked his nails. You never saw Mike Dillon At dances ultra nice; In fact, inspection found him Enjoying body lice. If Mike had married money Or had a little drag, He might have got a brevet And missed a little “fag”; But as a social figure He simply wasn’t there— So Mike continued drilling And knifing up his fare. In course of time they shipped ’em And shipped ’em over where A man like Mike can sidestep The frigid social stare, And do the job of soldier Without the fancy frills, And keep a steady footing In the pace that really kills. Now Mike did nothing special; He only did his best: He stuck and “went on over”— And got it in the chest; He played it fair and squarely Without a social air, And Mike is now in heaven And at least a corporal there!