Written by Vince Calangelo during
the same late night mission as Guardrail Day:
To give a shit, or not –that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the IPF to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous Commanders
Or to take arms against 15th MI BN
And by opposing, end them. A day off, to sleep—
No more—and by sleep to say “RTB” and end
The heartache, and the thousand
natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a
consummation
Devoutly to be wished. A day off, to sleep—
To sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep on day off what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mission,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That make calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of Battalion,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud IPF’s fate
The pangs of despised love, the ARF’s
delay,
The insolence of officers, and their spurns
That patient merit of the end of mission brief,
When he himself might his quietus make
With civilian clothes? Who would this deny,
To grunt and sweat under a double mission,
But that dread of taskings from
Battalion,
The undiscovered country, from whose grasp
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly for others that we know not
of?
Thus missions do make zombies of us all,
And thus the mind numbing hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast
of though,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. –Soft you now,
Fair MOPS Platoon – Slaves, in thy Battalion
Be all thy missions remembered.