I go way back in time for a while.
Here's one on the poet who was hired by Sparta to write
their marching songs, Tyrtaeus.
"Exhortation on Military Themes."
Courage, I say thus exhorting myself,
I say encouraging the way words, the way the lame Tyrtaeus was
supposed to have been paid to say them,
making marching songs to make whole Spartans march away
in whole faith.
Quote, "now hear this you sons of Hercules.
God is on our side.
So make believe black death is white as day.
Dress up your hair for war and as
for a dreamed of girl or boy.
And throw your bodies away.
Love and your deaths are equal joys."
But in his own crippled song to himself on marching and lamely,
he paid himself to say, "Go it alone, kids.
Run your own races.
But when they say shit, squat, and make faces."
All these men later died.
And his fame goes on in all military routines
while the counter song and I just made
of army phrases I once overheard goes on
in the enlisted men's latrines.