Do you wonder why that rifle

Is hanging in my den?

You know I rarely take it down

But I touch it now and then.

It's rather slow and heavy

By standards of today

But not too many years ago

It swept the rest away.

It's held its own in battles

Through snow, or rain, or sun

And I had one just like it,

This treasured old M-1.

It went ashore at Bougainville

In Nineteen Forty-Three.

It stormed the beach at Tarawa

Through a bullet-riddled sea.

Saipan knew its strident bark,

Kwajalein, its sting.

The rocky caves of Peleliu

Resounded with its ring.

It climbed the hill on Iwo

With men who wouldn't stop

And left our nation's banner

Flying on the top.

It poked its nose in Pusan,

Screamed an angry roar

And took the First Division

From Chosin Reservoir.

Well, time moves on

And things improve

With rifles and with men,

And that is why the two of us

Are sitting in my den.

But sometimes on a winter night,

While thinking of my Corps,

I know that if the bugle blew

We'd be a team once more.