Each recruit or officer adds another mismatch between grand ideals and everyday army life. The recurring patriotic line becomes more ironic as the portraits accumulate. All nine blocks of the main version, including the final At ease!, are present. Two alternate U.K. verses on the second source page belong to a different performance version and are not appended.
The heart of every man in our platoon must swell with pride
For the nation's youth, the cream of which is marching at his side,
For the fascinating rules and regulations that we share,
And the quaint and curious costumes that we're called upon to wear.
Now Al joined up to do his part defending you and me.
He wants to fight and bleed and kill and die for liberty.
With the hell of war he's come to grips,
Policing up the filter tips.
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier.
When Pete was only in the seventh grade, he stabbed a cop.
He's real R.A. material, and he was glad to swap
His switch-blade and his old zip-gun
For a bayonet and a new M-1.
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier.
After Johnny got through basic training, he
Was a soldier through and through when he was done.
Its effects were so well rooted
That the next day he saluted
A Good-Humor man, an usher, and a nun.
Now Fred's an intellectual, brings a book to every meal.
He likes the deep philosophers, like Norman Vincent Peale.
He thinks the army's "just the thing"
Because he finds it "broadening."
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier.
Now Ed flunked out of second grade and never finished school.
He doesn't know a shelter-half from an entrenching tool.
But he's going to be a big success.
He heads his class at O.C.S.
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier.
Our old mess sergeant's taste buds had been shot off in the war,
Buit his savory collations add to our esprit de corps.
To think of all the marvelous ways
They're using plastics nowadays,
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier.
Our lieutenant is the up and coming type,
Played with solders as a boy, you just can bet.
It is written in the stars,
He will get his captain's bars,
But he hasn't got enough boxtops yet.
Our captain has a handicap to cope with, sad to tell.
He's from Georgia, and he doesn't speak the language very well.
He used to be, so rumor has,
The dean of men at Alcatraz,
It makes a fellow proud to be
What as a kid I vowed to be,
What luck to be allowed to be a soldier.
At ease!