Soldiers mark anniversary with traditional rum drink

All riiiiight..

Rum and camo pants. Cant' beat that combination.

Rum rations are a big tradition in the military especially the Engineers. Most of the songs we have some reference to rum.

I remember hearing some of them. And some of the rum stories from one of my great uncles. Maybe that's what set the tone with me.

Hehe, when I was on my tour of Italy last year I taught a couple of Americans some engineer drinking songs. For some reason the Americans didnt have any they could remember.

That's awesome!

They loved them too; we would all be drinking in some place like Florence when one of them would start up:
"My father was a miner, from the upper Malamute.."

"My mother was a hostess in a house of ill repute.
They kicked me out at the age of five to tend to my own beer,
So I said to hell with them, and I joined the Engineers!"

I smell a YouTube vid comin.....

"My mother was was a mistress from a house of ill repute..."

Hehe, close, but you got the gist of the song.

There is that one and the Engineer version of Old King Cole that are my favorates.

I celebrated with a shot of Bacardi 151.

I'm proud to be a Dragoon.

I got more than the gist.....I found the full lyrics!


Godiva was a lady who through Coventry did ride,
To show to all the villagers her lovely bare white hide.
The most observant man on Earth, an Engineer, of course,
Was the only one to notice that Godiva rode a horse.

We are, we are, we are, we are, we are the Engineers!
We can, we can, we can, we can, demolish forty beers.
Drink rum, drink rum, drink rum, drink rum, drink rum, and follow us,
For we don’t give a damn for any old man who don’t give a damn for us!

Said she, “I’ve come a long, long way; the man will go as far
Who takes me off this goddamn horse and leads me to a bar.”
The man who took her off her horse and stood her to a beer,
Was a bleary eyed surveyor and a hell of an Engineer.

My father was a miner from the Upper Malamute;
My mother was a hostess in a house of ill repute.
They kicked me out at the age of five to tend to my own beer,
So I said to hell with them, and I joined the Engineers!

An Artsman and an Engineer once found a gallon can.
Said the Artsman, “Match me drink for drink; let’s see if you’re a man!”
They drank three drinks, the Artsman died, his face was turning green.
The Engineer drank on and said, “It’s only gasoline!”

On reading Kama Sutra, he tried position nine.
For proving masculinity, it truly was divine.
But then one day, the girl rebelled and threw him on his rear,
For he was a feeble artsie and she was an Engineer.

My mother peddles opium, my father’s on the dole,
My sister used to walk the streets but now she’s on parole.
My brother runs a restaurant with bedrooms in the rear,
But they won’t even speak to me ’cause I’m an Engineer.

Godiva was a lady well endowed there was no doubt,
She never wore a stitch of clothing, just wound her hair about.
The first man ever made her was an Engineer of course,
But on just one beer an Artsie once made Godiva’s horse.

Venus is a statue made entirely of stone.
There’s not a fig leaf on her, she’s naked as a bone.
On noticing her arms were gone, an Engineer discoursed:
“The damn thing’s busted concrete, and it should be reinforced!”

I happened once upon a girl whose eyes were full of fire;
Her physical endowments would have made your hands perspire.
To my surprise she told me that she never had been kissed;
Her boyfriend was a tired Engineering Physicist.

Sir Francis Drake and all his men set out for Calais Bay,
They’d heard the Spanish Rum Fleet was headed out that way.
But the Engineers had beat them, by a night and half a day,
And though they were so far away, you still could hear them say…

Caesar went to Egypt at the age of fifty-three,
But Cleopatra’s blood was red; her heart was young and free.
And every night when Caesar said good-night at one o’clock,
A Roman engineering was waiting just around the block.

A maiden and an Engineer were sitting in a park;
The Engineer was busy doing research in the dark.
His scientific method was a marvel to observe;
While his right hand wrote the figures down, his left hand traced the curves.

The army and the navy men were out to have some fun,
Looking for a tavern where the fiery liquors run.
All they found were empties, for the Engineers had come,
And traded all their instruments for gallon jugs of rum.

An Engineer once came to class, so drunk and very late,
And carrying a load that you’d expect to ship by freight.
The only thing that held him up and kept him to his course,
Was the boundary condition and the electromotive force.

Now you’ve heard our story and you know we’re Engineers,
And like all jolly good fellows, we drink our whiskeys clear.
We drink to every fellow who comes from far and near,
‘Cause we’re a hell-of-a, hell-of-a, hell-of-a, hell-of-a, hell-of-an Engineer!



That's a long tune

(You should sing it and YouTube it, I'm tellin' ya.....)

When are you headed out West CM?

The cabin boy, the cabin boy,
The dirty little nipper.
He lined his ass with fiberglass,
And circumcised the skipper.

Away away with the fife and drum,
Here we come full of rum.
Lookin' for women to paddle our bum,
In the North Atlantic squadron.

In my dad's day they had their daily rum ration on ship, but when I served we had a pop machine that dispensed beer. While at sea, you were only allowed wine or beer, but while alongside the mess was the place to get primed before hitting town, or if you were an OD(OSUT) with a curfew.