My D.I.

This is written with a heavy heart
I don’t know where to start
As far as reasons, I have many..
But respect in retrospect, is as good as any.
As indestructible as we think they are,
DI’s can be killed when they go to war.
Why do I have this lump in my throat
and why this tear in my eye?
Why do I feel so way down deep,
this awful need to cry?

I joined the Corps in ’66,
San Diego, Platoon 356.
So much time has now passed by,
But I wanted to say “thanks” to my DI.
I dropped a line to Mail Call,
But then I found him myself — he’s on the Wall.

He was the sharpest Marine that I’ve ever seen –
ruggedly handsome, looking lean and mean:
The perfect specimen of a US Marine.
We met once again in a place called Dong Ha.
How it came about I can’t recall.
But I do remember this — I was standing tall.
I was old, my tour was done.
Gunny Roper’s tour had just begun.

We sat on some sandbags and shot the shit.
We spoke of the war
and tried to make some sense of it.
I said that I thought it sucked a whole lot.
He said “Yep, but it’s all we got.”
How cool it was for me, can’t you see,
sitting on sandbags, just him and me.

My teacher taught me a hell of a lot.
So I survived, but my teacher did not.

Thomas J. (Stoney) Burke

PLT 356